Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Rise of the Planet of the Apes, 2011, USA
I skipped this movie in theatres because I’d written it off as a result of the terrible Planet of the Apes remake. This was a mistake. The movie was a fantastic “reboot” of the series.
Will (James Franco) is a researcher who has created a drug to help alzheimer’s patients. He is especially passionate about the research because his father (John Lithgow) has dementia. After his test goes disastrously wrong on a female chimp, the trial is shut down. Will finds out that the female chimp had been pregnant, and he takes in the infant chimp. The chimp, named Caesar (Andy Serkis) inherited the effects of the drug and displays extraordinary intelligence. Will, his father, and his primatologist girlfriend (Freida Pinto) raise Caesar, until he’s taken away and placed in a primate facility. There, Caesar’s growing intelligence allows him to take over as leader of the facility chimps.
The highlight of the film is Serkis. His acting was fantastic. Caesar had a fascinating mixture of human and chimp attributes. Serkis is very good at acting physically and he got the chimp movements down perfectly.
Almost all of the chimps were created using motion capture, as opposed to the make-up effects used in the previous Planet of the Apes movies. We’re not yet at a point where motion capture or any CGI can look completely realistic, but the visual effects in the movie were generally pretty good. I noticed that the scenes where the apes were indoors looked a bit better than the scenes where the apes were outdoors. I imagine that was because the indoor scenes were probably shot on a sound stage, where conditions were quite a bit more controlled. I’m also assuming the indoor shots could use a green screen, whereas outdoor shots wouldn’t have a green screen. There were a couple of outdoor shots that looked ridiculous, but it was pretty good, overall. I’m pretty amazed at how far we’ve come in terms of special effects on film.
What impressed me most about the story is that it’s not really an “apes versus humans” story. There are sympathetic characters who are apes and sympathetic characters who are humans. It would have been too easy to make one species the hero and one species the villain. I’m interested in seeing how the sequel examines the dynamics between the two species.
I saw the movie in HD, and I’d recommend you do the same if you can. I really wish I’d gone to see the movie in theatres! I’ll definitely be seeing the sequel in theatres.