Plot summary (from the studio): Rise of the Apes is an origin story in the truest sense of the term. Set in present day San Francisco, the film is a reality-based cautionary tale, a science fiction/science fact blend, where man’s own experiments with genetic engineering lead to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy.
Warning: Spoilers below!
Liked:
- The part where Caesar looked at Draco (sorry, don’t know what his name was in this movie) and suddenly said, “No!” was pretty good. At the rate things were going, I didn’t expect any of the apes to be able to talk in this film, so that scene was a complete surprise.
- It was fun seeing Caesar’s intelligence developing throughout his childhood with Will. I wish they had shown more of what Caesar could do so we could get a better idea of where he stood intelligence-wise.
- I thought Caroline was actually a good, useful character here. Usually the girlfriend is just a drag on the entire movie, but Caroline supported Will, understood Caesar, and brought some skills to the table.
- The scene where Caesar rounded up all the apes in the sanctuary and had them standing upright while “talking” to them was freaky. It was evocative of Orwell’s Animal Farm, and made me react just as the sanctuary caretaker did.
Disliked:
- I thought it was a bit of a cliche to make Will’s driving force be a desire to help his father. That’s been done to death in other movies, so it felt like a total retread here.
- There were lots of boring parts in this film. A lot of what went down at the primate sanctuary could have been cut without sacrificing anything in the big scheme of things, and that would have helped pick the pace up.
- I thought it was almost laughable that Will didn’t have anything to say to to Caesar at the end of the film other than, “Okay, Caesar is home now.” I mean, WTF??? Will spent YEARS of his life on this research, and when he finally learns of the breakthrough, he doesn’t bother questioning this CHIMP THAT CAN TALK???? What kind of scientist is he?!
- Why wouldn’t that lab assistant tell anyone he was sick? When you work around experimental drugs and gases, wouldn’t you be on the lookout for any adverse side effects? Hiding the illness seemed like the least likely course — especially since the assistant didn’t even have anything to gain by keeping quiet.
- I hate seeing animals mistreated, even when it’s in a movie. Many of the scenes involving Draco and Caesar were just hard to watch.
Rating:
I thought Rise of the Planet of the Apes was a decent movie. It had its problems for sure, but it was entertaining more often than not and was very watchable overall. I give this one 3 stars out of 5.
