Rise of the Planet of the Apes

• Directed by Rupert Wyatt
• August 5, 2011
• Premise suggested by Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle

A chimpanzee genetically enhanced and raised by humans goes from living in captivity to leading an ape uprising against humanity. Normal stuff when you think about it.

Hollywood has a distinct love of exhuming the corpses of fondly remembered properties and giving them another try. Sometimes they are like Rey Skywalker-related in name only. Others are like a biological cousin-related enough that the connection is obvious but not strongly overt. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is more like a biological cousin. Related but not necessarily a sibling.

Part of my issue with Rise is the heavy CGI used to accomplish the apes. I understand it’s not practical and probably not possible to use a large number of trained animals to accomplish this movie. Nor would actors in prosthetics work for animals that are only now becoming intelligent. Even the best ape costumes still look like costumes.

The CGI as often happens has not aged well. Caesar in the necessary close-up shots can look rather fake in the face. The distant ones look good but when you get a close up you see just how not real it all is. Even back then the technology existed to clean up practical effects with CGI and I probably would’ve gone with that. The classic ET did just that decades after the fact and before this movie came out-I think. 

Rupert Wyatt and friends drop various homages to the original films, but this is clearly not part of that particular series. I’m kind of astounded when people say it is since that demonstrates they have never watched the original five movies. And this is aside from plot elements. This is much less heavy on the social commentary than the original films were. There are hints of animal welfare and ambition overtaking intelligent thought and how hubris can cause problems.

And how can we forget the other present corporate greed? Mega Medical Co. is driven purely by greed and clearly has no understanding of what they are handling yet such things keep the lights on. And what gets me is when there’s a containment breach in Rise, they let the guy run around even though they are dealing with a virus. Nobody thinks it might be wise to keep him under observation for a little while? Huh?

The presence of Lithgow’s character was unnecessary. He gave the audience a visible representation of the downside of the disease but so did containment breach guy. James Franco’s character could have still been driven to develop the disease without Lithgow’s parent character being there. He padded the story but did little to elevate things.

And the human characters other than the one played by the always good David Hewlett are rather bland. If there is any issue with the narrative and keeping it interesting it’s when the story focuses on them. The movie is much more interesting when you see a human story acted out by the assorted ape characters.

Jerkiness moves things forward. Jerkiness by people prompts Caesar to begin a revolution. Rather than examine the human condition or make social commentary the movie basically says people are terrible. A popular element in today’s film but it’s nothing special.

I’m not saying Rise is terrible but it doesn’t offer the nuances or depth of the original films. Not all of them but some anyway. It is much more action focused with terrible people and apes causing massive destruction and probably killing a few innocent civilians that might have sided with the apes with the apes getting framed as the good guys. Group guilt. 

Still Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an entertaining movie. Not quite up there with the original or even the second film but it will satisfy the general moviegoer. Not a strong recommendation but a recommendation nonetheless.