Movie Two Hundred Thirteen
Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the origin story for the ape uprising that leads to the Planet of the Apes.
Will Rodman (James Franco) is a scientist at Gen-Sys that is developing a cure for Alzheimer’s for his ailing father, Charles (John Lithgow). After testing a potential treatment on a chimpanzee captured from the wild, the chimp becomes extremely smart but lashes out after giving birth while in captivity. Rodman adopts the young chimp, who shows signs of great intelligence, and names him Caesar (motion capture by Andy Serkis). The designed treatment seems to work without a problem on apes, but affects humans with flu-like symptoms, leading to death. After protecting Charles and lashing out at a neighbor, Caesar is put in captivity and eventually starts molding the other captive apes with his intelligence and stages a breakout.
The main problem with prequels like Rise of the Planet of the Apes is that we all essentially know how the film ends. Rise of the Planet of the Apes essentially just needs to get from point A to point B, or at least set up the road to point B and it can be lazy doing so. Luckily, Rise of the Planet of the Apes tells an interesting story and makes you actually care about the people (and apes) involved. I’m a huge fan of John Lithgow’s and I never thought he got as much attention for his role here, but I loved his character. Andy Serkis is also a bit overlooked, but as always, does a remarkable job with the motion capture.
At times, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is unintentionally funny, or at least it was to me. It’s a film that seems to demand being taken seriously but sets up some situations that are inherently humorous or silly. I found this a bit distracting but in a weird way, it kind of makes the film almost more enjoyable. To its credit, I never found myself bored by Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but I was mostly indifferent to it. It was better than I expected but it never truly impressed me.
Rise of the Planet of Apes did eventually land in the pitfall of prequels I mentioned before. Although it is remarkable at times, for the most part it’s just going through the motions of an origin story. Oddly, I have seen much praise for this movie but not necessarily for Prometheus, which does a bit more than going from A to B. Since they are making a sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes that I assume further bridges the gap between our current society and the inevitable Planet of the Apes, it will be interesting to see how they keep the momentum of the series going since we know exactly the outcome.
I give it 3 are intelligent ape outbreaks the new zombie attacks? out of 5.
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Man, I love this movie. I had very low expectations (I always thought the premise of this franchise was just dumb), so maybe that is why I was so impressed by it. Any movie that can get me to care about a character that doesn’t and can’t fully exist is worth taking note of, in my opinion.
I get what you are saying about prequels falling into the trap that we already know the ending, but if the journey there is fascinating enough, that won’t matter. That’s where I think this movie succeeded – it made me care about how the characters got to the end, and not just the end.
By the way – your review criteria always crack me up. I love them.
Very fair point – I cared a lot more than I thought too, but in the end I wasn’t wholly impressed. Still, definitely better than I thought too.
Haha thanks!
I was surprised by how much I ended up enjoying this movie. True, we do know the outcome but I like to think of the prequels films as being about the journey. Good post, man!
I was pleasantly surprised too, regardless of my low-ish rating. Thanks!
I enjoyed this film. Sure the story wasn’t great but it was fun plus there were some good performances by John Lithgow and Andy Serkis. And it’s still way better than that awful remake Tim Burton made. Nice review.
Ugh, totally agreed about that…
Thanks!
I truly value and promote diversity and we all have our own opinions but I just can’t see what the big draw is on this one. The wife and I thought this looked terrible in the trailers and then we watched it for free on cable and it was worse than we expected… to each their own though. did you just recently watch it? Wasn’t there only about 20 apes in the “jail” and then when they escape and storm there’s hundreds of em?
I…didn’t even think of that. Did they wrangle other apes?
Now that you mention it, that is weird and I just watched it on the 17th…
that was kind of the topper for us. We were like – “eh, not good, free but not good..” then we were “WTH is going on here? Where did all of these monkeys come from???”
lol I may have to go back and watch the latter parts to see where they do all come from now that I’m thinking about it…
Your readers demand it!!
Then it is my sworn duty!
Either that…Or I’ll check out YouTube or something
This was more a reamagining of tje prequal or a reinvention of it as the original Roddy McDowell, Chalton Heston series of movies had a different and in my opion more plausible sequence of events. I looked back at my review http://wordschat.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/rise-of-the-planet-of-the-apes/ and saw I gave it a 7/10. I also had it in my Worst movies of 2011 liist. I didn’t go ape in praising it and it derves more like a 5 of 10 in that light.
Admittedly, I haven’t seen any of the other “original series” movies except Planet of the Apes. Do they go into detail on the origins?
Absolutely. You have to get the Blu-ray box set and watch them in the order they were made. One or two were laughly bad but there is so much great in there. Be patient to learn how it all came to be.
I may just have to check that out sometime!
In the original Apes films, they had a sort of time conundrum where the apes escaped the planet as it was being destroyed and wind up back on earth (when people ruled and not apes) then (and I’m not sure how this transpired) a virus destroys the worlds cat and dog population and apes become the new ‘pet’ it all grows from there…If I remember correctly.
Hm. So other than the time thing, it’s not too different.
Each to their own indeed, but I felt this movie was at least one hundred times better than the original “prequel”. Out of the whole original series, only the original movie had any purpose, and that was as a cold-war doomsday message to humanity to wake up and knock it off before we blow ourselves up and apes end up ruling the planet. Everything thereafter was mediocre at best, although some interesting science fiction here and there. THIS movie, on the other hand, presents a completely plausible idea (exaggerated, perhaps) that makes it both entertaining and thought provoking.
I liked the idea of presenting an origin point for the series (I think I’ve only seen the original movie out of the original series) but the execution left me wanting.
I’d be interested to know if you ever get around to watching the older movies if you actually prefer them to this one. Normally I hate remakes, but this remake is much better than the original Rise…
I had considered buying the box set, so we’ll see if I get around to it.
I actually really enjoyed this one and was very surprised by it. One of the best summer films I’ve seen – at least better than the options we had in 2012.
It was a good summer film, I definitely liked some of the stuff this year, though.
I really loved the graphics on this movie! It’s not a bad origin story, seeing as it’s a remake. This praise is also due to the fact that it’s more believable than the original series… Why is that? Well, let me explain:
In the movie “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes”, the origin of the smart apes is explained by a temporal paradox (smart monkey came from the future and determined others to follow him; eventually, the other monkeys become smart and conquer the entire World)… On the other hand, in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”, the cause for the sudden evolution is a serum used to treat Alzheimer’s disease; plus, only the apes from a lab escape and take over a forest… It’s 100 more believable than the older version and it explains everything in a step-by-step way!
But is it any better? Well, I would have to say YES, but only on the realism and special effects… I’m still a convinced classic movie fanatic! This is a great review, Andy! Congrats!
Thanks for the explanation of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, I had never seen that one but I agree this makes a lot more sense!
You’re very welcome, Andy! You should really take a look at the original series (if you haven’t already). It’s just great! You will definitely fall in love with Zira and Cornelius… later with Caesar
… Of course, if you’re into sci-fi classics…
Oh, I loved the original Planet of the Apes I just never got around to the others in the series (or the TV show)
I see… Well, good luck with that
!
Nice review Andy. I wasn’t actually expecting to be as moved as I did from this material but Serkis just really channeled the inner ape within him, and nails this perfect motion-capture performance as Caesar.
If Serkis wasn’t involved I don’t think this would have been nearly as good as it ended up being.
I’m another one who had low expectations, but I really liked it. I agree with you about John Lithgow – I thought he was fabulous in this role.
I had a lot of issues with the movie going into it, like how armed soldiers can possibly lose to a bunch of apes, hyper-intelligent or not. But at the end of the movie, I just really enjoyed seeing Caesar’s character growth, and that’s what made the movie for me.
I still think a crapload of machineguns is still going to put down an ape uprising though.
I found that a bit silly too
Thanks for mentioning Prometheus showing the true origins of humans–aliens!!
You could watch the movie as an animal liberation morality play; it’s about the futility of contained the uncontainable. My dog really likes this movie – ha – as it has horses and animals and she tends to just stare at the TV when on…wonder what she makes of it! Check out my FRANKENSTEINian take on it, too!
Haha I love when my dog does that too.
I’ll check it out now!
Nice review. I didn’t like this film a lot, to be honest.
“At times, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is unintentionally funny, or at least it was to me. It’s a film that seems to demand being taken seriously but sets up some situations that are inherently humorous or silly.”
I agree but I had a different reaction. The unintentional comedy bugged me a lot.
It prevented me from enjoying the film on a serious level but also kind of enjoyed it BECAUSE it was so off-the-wall.
For some reason I just can’t get into these movies. 213 movies so far. That’s great!
Understandable
Yeah, I’m really plugging along but it still feels like 300 is far away!
It was a great movie and one of my favorites last year. Sure you know where it all is going, but the ride was very enjoyable. Looking forward to the sequel.
Nice review. I was a bit disappointed in it. However, I’m still excited for the sequel.
I’m pretty excited for the sequel as well, even after being nonplussed by this one.
Great review. I thought John Lithgow was great too – I have been a big fan of his since I first saw him in Third Rock From The Sun. Have to say that the ending spoiled this movie for me – we knew what was coming but it just seemed very silly when the chimp began to talk!
I laughed so hard when he first spoke – so ridiculous
Haven’t seen this but recently watched Tim Burton’s planet of the apes remake. Zzzzz.
Haha my thoughts exactly.
Worst, most unnecessary, contribution-less piece of crap ever. And I like Tim Burton… usually!
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I will admit that I was completely against seeing this movie. The trailer for this movie pretty much gave everything away, negating the need to see it. Oh and Franco as a scientist? About as believable as Tara Reid was a scientist in Alone in the Dark. But I did see this movie a while back and was incredibly impressed. It was well crafted, the acting was great, it had all the right elements to make a compelling movie and it was a nice addition to the Apes franchise.
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