The summer 2011 movie season has almost come to a close, but before the door shuts completely, and we hunker down for the dismal fall movie season, H’wood has a few more flicks for us to check out. Today, Rise of the Planet of the Apes arrives in theaters.
An origin story set in present day San Francisco, where man’s own experiments with genetic engineering lead to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy.
Did you see it? Was it a perfect lead in to the modern Planet of the Apes saga, or did it lack that certain something?
Use the comment section below to write your own review of the movie, share your thoughts on why the movie ruled your weekend, or why you will never get those precious hours back.
6 Comments
I just got back, and personally, I thought it was AWESOME. Playing the role of a prequel, it set up an amazing foundation for a whole “modern apes” saga. It didnt go over the top and become campy, and the plot (as well as more than one homage to the original) sat nicely, making me smile and nod. I would definitely recommend it, and would love to see a sequel.
I also feel the need to add (for those on the fence) the trailers do not do this film justice. I have heard numerous people complaining about “the amount of apes”, as if San Francisco is an unbelievable hotbed for billions of primates. The majority of the trailers show many different scenes that could probably be misinterpreted as occurring simultaneously. To that extent, the previous concerns are justified. However, the film itself is much more…dare i say…”realistic and believable”.
The smartest of the summer blockbuster films by far. It actually doesn’t try to rely on explosions and lots of other BS. The film builds a nice background for the characters and makes you actually care about Cesar. Parts of the film have this prison type of movie vibe.
Spoiler Alert: The only issue I have with the film is before the virus fully spreads they could send an apache helicopter into the redwoods and saw down every damn dirty ape in sight. Just one helicopter would do. A few hellfire missiles and 50mm guns. Done deal. Humanity still would be screwed because of the virus but at least damn apes wouldn’t run the show.
Best use of cgi since Lord of the Rings (yeah I know it’s the same guy). It works in all the ways Avatar and the Star Wars prequels didn’t. Or the Transformers, Christ, it’s night and day from the Transformers. You know how in Transformers movies the non action scenes are just irritating, poorly written filler? This is the opposite.
They take their time and build the story. Every scene means something. Every scene build the tension, it build and builds and builds until it’s finally released in these beautiful terrifying violent scenes. But unlike other modern effects movies you care about what’s going on because you have an emotional connection to characters. They give you credit for having patients and intelligence, and don’t just filibuster and then throw a bunch of moneys at you
And the facial expressions, when Caesar grows up enough to realize he’ll never be human the combination of anger and disappoint is just written all over his face. You identify with him, because you get what’s going on in his mind. It just a fantastic fusion of acting and technology.
Then throw Franco and Lithgow on top of that. Plenty of references for the fanboys. Just excellent all around.
I enjoyed it very much. Not campy. Not stupid. But believable and draws the audience in emotionally.
This is a fantastic film. As a big fan of the Apes films, I’ll say this is the second best (after the original) of any Apes film. It’s a smart movie, with a compelling central character who isn’t even human. Caesar is probably the most believable virtual character ever put on screen. He’s sympathetic, and you will find yourself rooting for him by the end of the movie.
See this movie.
SPOILER ALERT!
As to Rooney’s criticism above about sending in an Apache chopper to gun down the rebelling apes, just think about how long it took our entire army to take out Osama Bin Laden. Caesar and his Ape rebels are established as having at least Human level intelligence if not greater. Caesar showed a fairly advanced understanding of combat tactics in the Battle at the Bridge. Now imagine the difficulty of finding a highly motivated, intelligent and mobile force in an environment they were literally designed to live in. It would be far more difficult than the solution laid out. I imagine the priority of finding these apes would evaporate pretty quickly as an airborne virus is breaking out worldwide and people are dropping dead left and right. I felt the ending was quite believable.