Let’s just go ahead and be clear: I didn’t go bananas for the new Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The film, which stars James Franco in an ape of a role and Andy Serkis as an actual ape, has some serious flaws. For one, the usually charming Franco falters under the weight of a clunky, uneven script; much of his performance feels wooden, and the moral ambiguity and sometimes-ruthless ambition his character exhibits (the so-called “Rise” does fall pretty squarely on his shoulders) is never fully acknowledged by the end. I was also disappointed by the seeming lack of any actual apes in the film (though unsurprisingly, PETA was not); the entire cast of chimps was constructed from CGI, and though some of it was done quite well, it is still difficult for me to make the leap across the Uncanny Valley (even with primates). Once more, the science fiction film is very selective in what science it chooses to create, recognize, and outright ignore; most notably, the way Caesar interacts with other, less-intelligent apes, who would not be able to differentiate between his friendly signing and an invitation to rip his arms out of his sockets. At another point, he is warned by a Circus Orangutan that humans do not like smart apes, a warning that would make more sense if Caesar had not already outed himself through wearing clothes, signing to his owner and using chalk to draw an image of home on his wall. But we can’t all be as smart as the apes in this film.The film isn’t lacking in appeal, though: Andy Serkis’s performance as Caesar, though layered under a pile of sometimes-great sometimes-not-so-great CGI, has been praised as the highlight of the movie. I tend to agree, though I cannot shake the feeling that his ‘performance’ – and the effects that go along with it – still pale in comparison to those we saw from him as the misshapen Gollum from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. The film also offsets its often poorly-written dialogue with a strong, fast pace and some clever plot-maneuvering that deftly handled many of the potential problems faced by the script (namely, how in a world full of guns and advanced military technology – let alone 6 billion people – does a relatively small group of super-intelligent apes survive long enough to become the dominant species on Earth). Tom Felton – the guy you’re probably used to seeing as the super-greasy Draco Malfoy – is convincingly super-greasy again as a sadistic guard at an animal control primate facility, though in a film where even the handsome lead is overshadowed by his hairy friend, secondary characters feel like even more of an afterthought. That said, the facility proves an interesting backdrop for a film that ultimately becomes the ape equivalent of the Shawshank Redemption, except instead of embezzling thousands of otherwise fraudulent dollars and escaping to Mexico, the apes run wild through the streets of San Francisco, cross the Golden Gate Bridge, and…
…that’s about it. Though the title itself should be indication enough, the film itself ultimately functions as more of a preview for another movie; it teases at a connection to the previous Planet of the Apes canon, while also allowing for what is, at this point, an inevitable sequel (the film, which premiered Friday, outdid opening expectations to the tune of almost 20M USD). Good, but not quite great, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is perhaps the last summer 2011 blockbuster worth seeing.
