Thursday 4 September 2014

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - A Review

Okay, so this film is a few years old now, but seeing as I've only just watched it - Having kids has certainly taken my finger of the pop culture pulse - I wanted to offer my thoughts.

Rise is clearly the start of a new run of Apes films. With Dawn having just gone through the cinemas, I felt it was time to watch it.

As the title suggests, Rise is the Apes book of Genesis.



In Rise, we get to know the first Ape - Caesar. Used in experiments to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease, Caesar develops way beyond the expected intellect of a normal ape. This is handled well in the film, always highlighting the potential problems for messing with nature and science.

When Caesar's death is ordered due to an experiment going wrong, Will Rodman (played by James Franco), takes him home to live with him.

The inevitable happens and Caesar becomes a threat to society. This is when he's transferred to a sanctuary. Up until this point, I was invested in the story, cared for Caesar's plight and really wanted to see him make it through. But it was at the sanctuary where the film lost me.

While in the sanctuary, Caesar finds himself in the care of a worker who hates apes. The thing is, the worker doesn't seem to have any motivation for hating the apes other than his own inherent cruelty. While this sets up the tension required for the conflict that sees Caesar eventually pop, it makes the sanctuary worker hideously one-dimensional and unbelievable. It was like they'd drafted in a Scooby Doo villain to push the story forwards because they didn't know how else to create conflict.

As the title suggests, the ensuing drama leads to the rise of the planet of the apes.

Were it not for the weak middle this would have been a great film. I'll definitely watch Dawn and hope Draco Malfoy is nowhere to be seen. The annoying thing is, he would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those pesky apes.

Rating - 6.5 out of 10.

1 comment:

  1. I liked this Planet of the Ape movies. I own all of them as for me as a pre-teen nothing will erase the sound of Charleton Heston lamenting my god, we did it, while staring at a piece of the statute of liberty in the ocean.

    I own all the original and the TV series. Few people realize that the original Planet of the Apes was the first blockbuster type of move to use the sequel. Before that, movies did not have sequels. It was also a commentary on the times in regards to race. Notice, all the enforcing type of apes were a particular kind!

    Aside from the franchise not being given credit for the above, there was also the creation of believable apes without CGI and other modern technology. The apes looks and felt like real "people".

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