Rating: G
Run Time: 105 minutes
The risk with creating intelligent apes is that they may end up being smarter than you – and if there’s only one problem with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, it’s that its primate cast are significantly smarter than the movie they’re in.
But before terrifying visions of Tim Burton’s failed 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes appear in your mind, relax – there is not a single rubber mask, nor Mark Wahlberg, in sight.
Director Rupert Wyatt has instead delivered a remarkably plausible take on the origin story of the science fiction classic, though has made a seemingly conscious decision to put both plot, and (human) character development, on the backburner in place of showing off what can only be described as an evolutionary step forward in digital film-making.
James Franco plays Wil Rodman, a scientist working on what he believes is a revolutionary cure for Alzheimers. He is, predictably, testing that drug – known at ALZ-112 – on chimpanzees.
After his research suffer some untimely misfortune, he brings a baby chimp called Caesar home and raises it as his pet/son. The rest of the movie concerns the challenges facing Caesar as he is caught between two worlds – too much of an ape to fit in with people, and too smart to spend his life eating bananas and scratching himself.
While Franco does his best with a character who makes some radical personality shifts to help the story, and John Lithgow shines as his Alzheimers suffering father, it is Andy Serkis, the rubber-faced actor who provided the core performance for the digital Caesar, that deserves all the plaudits for an extraordinary performance – one that is heightened, not diminished by the motion capture process.
It might even sound odd, obvious or even derogatory to say that Serkis and the digitally-rendered apes are the stars of this film, but it is none of those things. Rather its a recognition of all that is right, and the surprisingly little that is wrong, with a film that within its first 15 minutes sees James Franco relegated to a bit-part player.
It is not just the digital creations that shine – Wyatt also benefits from the cinematography of Andrew Lesnie, who brings a painter’s understanding of natural light and colour to scenes that have no right to be beautiful, but are, as in the long shot of chimps swinging through two rows of trees down a suburban street.
Ultimately though there is little substance beneath this stunning veneer. We know almost immediately where this film is taking us from the beginning, and it makes little effort to throw in any real surprises. In a way that makes it easier to simply admire the beauty, but somewhat dull and two-dimensional human characters assist in dragging this down just enough to prevent it being an incredibly good film.
With winking nods to, and carefully-established foundations for, the original films, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes will please old fans and win over a menagerie of new ones. It may not be the thinking person’s movie, but it is a genuine evolution in digital film-making, and that in itself is more than enough to make it worth seeing.
– Dane Halpin
3 ½ stars