Continuing the tradition of movies featuring scientists trying to cure Alzheimer's by testing on animals (Deep Blue Sea anyone?), Rise of the Planet of the Apes starts with a simple wish by Will Rodman (James Franco); that he will be able to cure his ailing father Charles Rodman (John Lithgow) through the power of modern medicine. Of course the only way to do this is to secure millions in funds from a pharmaceutical company only interested in profits, headed by the business-savvy Steven Jacobs (David Oyelowo). And the only way to get approval for human testing is to successfully test on chimpanzees.
Will's new drug shows an incredible increase in intelligence on one of the chimps he is testing. Unfortunately, the chimp goes ape and has to be euthanized by security. The test subject only went crazy because she had a child, young Caesar (Andy Serkis). Will's research is shut down but he adopts the young monkey who has the same trait as her mother on the drug: a ring of green in her eyes. Caesar grows up as a human, learning at an exponential rate while Will secretly uses the formula to treat his father. When the drug stops working on Charles, and he accidentally steals the neighbors car, Caesar comes to his protection against the car's owner in a fairly violent fashion.
Caesar is court-ordered into a primate house while Will starts work on a new drug that can be administered through aerosol cans. The reason being his dad is dieing because the drug no longer works. Charles slowly passes away. Caesar, being much too intelligent to be locked up, figures out how to break free and obtain the drug for his primate brethren.
The ape-pocalypse has effectively begun. But the marketing executives in Hollywood have portrayed this film all wrong. It isn't about the rise of the apes, it's about their escape. Their escape from being dumb animals. Caesar's escape from loneliness. They aren't rising up against us to kill us, they are rising up to get away from us. If they wanted to kill us it would be way too easy. Without our smarts, we would have no chance against animals that run faster, punch stronger and climb higher than us.
I found it hard to root against the apes. And the film does a good job of letting me do just that. The rise of the apes isn't preceded by their extermination of the human race. It's preceded by our hubris. The very drug that makes the apes strong is what destroys us. And when it spreads over the world and we perish, the intelligent apes will be the ones left to take care of it.
Rise is a touching film, brought to glorious life by the bottomless pit of talent that is Andy Serkis. His talent has been shown before behind the CGI faces of Gollum and King Kong. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the first movie to do something new with motion capture. In older films Andy would have to act out the scene with the real actors and then do the scene again in a green room to edit on his otherworldy features. Now Andy can act in the film with the actors in real time. And it shows, the level of depth he brings to animal expressions is amazing. Caesar comes to life and I didn't doubt that he was a real ape the entire film.
I have very few gripes, Draco Malfoy got to utter Charlton Heston's famous line from the original film. But he got his soon after so that made me happy. If you can't kill him in Harry Potter at least do it somewhere else.
The movie climaxes with a battle between ape and man on top of the Golden Gate Bridge. The entire film is well-shot and an example of how good a well thought origin story can be. If this is the future of the world, I am okay with it.
-3 and a 1/2 out of 4 stars
-Christopher O'Connell
P.S. Just call it Rise of the Apes. Everyone will still know what it refers to.
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