Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes

20th Century Fox did not have much success 10 years ago with their remake of 'Planet Of The Apes'. So now they are trying to restart the franchise again.

It took me a little while to see this film because I was all that excited about seeing it. The 'Planet Of The Apes' films, the original and the remake were good films but never excited me much. This new film was getting rave reviews but still I could not get excited about it. That all changed when I walked out of the cinema. I was very impressed with the story that writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver have come up with. At first I had trouble believing how they could come up with the situation where the earth is taken over by apes but they managed to achieve it. And in a clever and convincing way. At first I not too impressed. The Frankenstein concept is one which has been done so many times that it can be very hard to come up with a interesting way to make it look fresh. So the film did not start off to well but it did get better. Once the story moves into revolutionary territory then it starts to get more confident and seems more interesting. How Caesar gets his fellow inmates to join his cause is really well done. While Caesar behaves more human because of genetic engineering, there is some behavior by his less intelligent brethren that I was not convinced by. Despite that it is very well done.

The human performers in this film are just there as window dressing. The story is more focused on the apes and their story of taking over the planet. James Franco is very good as usual and does his best to make an interesting character. But in some ways he's just a typical scientist character. Freida Pinto sadly has not been able to get any interesting films after her break through role in 'Slumdog Millionaire'. Here she is merely a female love interest with no real purpose in the film. Her plot point could have been removed without any problems. I'm disappointed with Tom Felton. His first major non-Harry Potter role is once again playing a nasty bully. I fear he maybe doomed to stereotype. John Lithgow is his usual wonderful self and makes his character convincing. It is however Andy Serkis who steels the show. He is certainly the master of motion capture and is brilliant at bringing to life the character of Caesar the ape. It is a pity that he may not get the award recognition for it that he deserves.

After watching this film, I think that the apes deserve to take over the planet. The humans in this world are pretty dumb, with the exception of a couple, so I'm sure the apes could not do any worse.