Rise of the Planet of the Apes answers the question left unanswered in 1968 when Planet of the Apes first made its debut: how did the apes take over? In this very entertaining prequel, we find out that a scientist (James Franco) thinks he has the cure for Alzheimer’s. Of course, he injects his miracle drug into a lab chimpanzee and the chimpanzee gets smarter and smarter. The genie is out of the bottle. The authorities try to lock the super-smart chimpanzee up, but he escapes and gets his revenge on humanity. The CGI graphics are astonishing. After the original Planet of the Apes the sequels got lamer and lamer (although I still harbor an affection for Beneath the Planet of the Apes). This prequel is just as good as the original movie. GRADE: A
I am oddly attracted to this one. It looks pretty meaty.
RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is the classic example of a scientific “oops,” Patti. Once the scientist loses control of his experiment, humanity is toast.
The reviews have been all over the place. The NY Daily News guy obviously loves the whole series and gave this 5 stars. The NY Times liked it too (except the ending) whereas a guy on TV – usually a fairly easy grader – loved the CGI and the last half hour but found the rest boring and Franco comatose.
BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES is cheesy fun.
I think you have to be in the mood for an “everything goes to hell” movie like RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, Jeff. Many viewers aren’t going to like this movie’s darkness.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but James Franco was on Charlie Rose last night and they showed some clips. What I saw reminded me of Elizabeth Hess’s non-fiction book, NIM CHIMPSKY, about attempts in the 1970s to teach a chimp sign language and what happened to him when the experiment was halted: Nim was sent to a primate research center and treated rather cruelly–especially considering he had spent his first few years being raised by humans (he had never even seen another chimp before). Based on the clips I saw last night, I’m assuming Caesar has similar things happen to him. I have to figure the screenwriter was familiar with Hess’s book.
Yes, I noted the similarities with NIM CHIMPSKY, too, Deb. Clearly, the screenwriter “borrowed” some of the material about raising a chimp at home. But once the chimp has human (or more) intelligence, things get dicey.
Never liked any of them, will skip this one too.