Movie: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Well, this is pretty much everything you could ask for in a summer popcorn movie: mindless fun from start to finish. And if you’ll forgive my writerly prejudice, I think much of the reason for this lies in the script by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. Brilliantly condensed without being rushed, smart without leaving behind the audience, and so engrossing its implausibilities are irrelevant, it’s almost a textbook on how to deliver a crowd pleaser that doesn’t insult the intelligence.
Could drive a man ape.
It’s basically a new Planet of the Apes origin story, tracing the whole business back to one genetically-altered chimp named Caesar who becomes too smart for our own good. Great special effects, some visually stunning action scenes. A wise decision to concentrate on backstory and motivation and leave the big set pieces for the end. And best of all, you don’t really know who to root for, which gives the picture a little more edge than the usual piece of entertainment.
The biggest negative: James Franco, who stars. He can be good, but he phones this one in and it’s annoying. On the other hand, the painfully beautiful and charming Freida Pinto (pictured above) from Slumdog Millionaire provides some thinking man’s eye candy. And Andy Serkis – the actor who created Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Kong in the 2005 King Kong remake – is just terrific as Caesar. The guy is having a kind of career that never existed before and is clearly great at what he does.
An all around good time.
best of all, you don’t really know who to root for
I’m with Govindini Murty’s take on this at the Libertas film blog. Bashing humanity vs a fictional made up “other” (see AVATAR) seems to be an emergent theme lately. The assumptions of such a POV are shared by both the deep ecology movement and apologists for the police state.
James Franco = trash
Concur. I give it a 7 out of 10. And, yes, the apes were the much better actors than were the humans with the exception of Freida and Lithgow. Effects were terrific but the idiot elements of the plot does detract, along with lameass Franco. But Serkis alone was worth the $8.
If I have the ability to genetic enhance someone, why would I choose an ape and not my own kids? I can understand testing it first, but the minute it’s proven safe humans would want it. BTW, I believe their are about 100,000 apes in the entire world versus about 6,000,0000,000 humans. And although the POTUS might not be willing to nuke a city to get at the “super apes”, that doesn’t mean the Chinese or the Russians wouldn’t be willing to do so.
Mr. Giles,
I presume from your comments that you did not see this movie. The population disparity between humans and apes is dealt with and
SPOILER WARNING
the apes did not kill, attack or oppose the human population. Our demise was of our own making and you hit on it in your second sentence.
I was certainly getting bored with the monkey makeup. I’m looking forward to seeing 3D chimps going nuts. It looks like a fun movie.
Mr. Klavan,
This review brought to mind the guest shot you did on the Thom Hartman show a couple of weeks ago which opened up discussing Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
When Mr. Hartman said that “the more educated you are, if you have a Master’s degree or PhD, you’re vastly more likely to be a Democrat than if you just have a high school diploma or no high school diploma you are far more likely to be a Republican.”
He is essentially saying. Democrats=smart. Republicans=stupid. I don’t know how you kept your cool or didn’t walk off the set. The fact that he felt comfortable enough to voice such an insulting opinion left me slack-jawed in disbelief.
When you likened that opinion to racism he was quick to deny he meant anything like that.
Arrogance always blinds people to the beam in their eye.
http://www.thomhartmann.com/bigpicture/hartmann-why-conservatives-get-no-respect-hollywood