Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Story Line:

Will Rodman [Played by James Franco] is working on a cure for Alzheimer's.  Rodman thinks he has finally created a cure when a presentation goes horribly wrong.  An escaped chimp causes a shutdown in the program and forces the team to put down all the experimental chimps.  It turns out the reaction the chimp had was simply because she gave birth and was protecting her new born.  Rodman ends up taking the chimp home and soon discovers his cure not only works but increases intelligence at an alarming rate.

This baby chimps name is Caesar and he will be the newest leader of an Ape Revolution.  Caesar will have to battle adversity in the monkey world to take his claim to become a modern day real life ape version of Julius Caesar.  Giving more details of this story line would force me to reveal to many spoilers.  But I can guarantee this is a great prequel to the original Planet of the Ape films.

My Opinions:

First and foremost let me stress that this is so much better than the Mark Wahlberg remake of Planet of the Apes, and in no way, shape, or form resembles this. I would recommend, if you truly want to enjoy and understand all of this movie, watch the original Planet of the Apes.  I do appreciate how Rise of the Planet of the Apes uses subtle context clues to connect the story line to the original.  I can only imagine we will be seeing a sequel in the next year or two leading up to where the original picks up.  I predict the sequel to Rise of the planet  will be even better than this one.

I don't know about you, but I couldn't help but find myself rooting for the apes.  I think I have a whole new respect for apes and certainly hope that actual primate houses don't treat their apes in such a way. I couldn't help but connect Caesars experiences in the primate shelter to that of modern American prison... (Correct me if I'm wrong ) Also I think the Circus Orangutang silently stole the show and quickly became my favorite character.

Potential Cons:
You may miss certain references if you haven't seen the original Planet of the Apes.
 Peter Jackson chose not to use real apes, robots, or costumes but instead relied on a cutting edge WETA Digital program to create the apes we see in the film (I, in fact, was thoroughly impressed by how real every ape looked in this film... but some SciFi nerds love their men in costume)
The movie spans about 8 - 9 years and the characters have clearly not aged a day (I know its not that big a deal, just smalls things like that catch my attention).
The ending will leave us expecting a sequel.. If not done right, could be a huge let down.

Overall Grade:



B+