I have never been one to suggest that really cool special effects can improve a middling movie, because fx don't fix story problems or bad acting. But after seeing The Rise of the Planet of the Apes, destined to be one of the summer successes, I might have to whistle a different tune. The CGI and motion capture, combined with Andy Serkis' performance, is simply astounding, truly advancing the franchise's origin story into something that is unlike something you've seen before.
Of course, you've seen the other movies, or at the very least you know how it all ends up, right? Well, just in case, in the 1968 original, astronaut Charlton Heston landed on a strange planet where apes were intelligent, could speak, and ruled over humans. After finally managing to escape his captors, he discovered that he was actually on future Earth, where the tide had turned against humanity, and our primate brothers had risen to the top. Rupert Wyatt's new film plants the seed for all of that, and successfully makes the ape characters far more interesting than their human counterparts.
Pretty Renaissance Man James Franco is Will Rodman, a San Francisco-based scientist working on a cure for Alzheimer's, the disease his father (John Lithgow) suffers from. He's been testing his work on chimpanzees, of course, who are showing increased intelligence and perception. It all goes wrong, however, on the big day when Will and his corporate counterpart (David Oyelowo) present their findings in the hopes of securing human trials and, presumably, an additional round of funding. Rodman is left picking up the pieces, which includes a baby chimp born to one of his simian lab rats. Rather than putting him down, he takes the chimp home, where dad names him Caesar, and where he quickly develops extraordinary intelligence, surpassing all of Will's dreams for his drug.
However, if you've seen the recently released—and very, very good—documentary "Project Nim," you already know that raising a chimp in a human household is a bad idea for everyone, especially the chimp. Bad stuff happens, and Caesar, who is certainly smarter than the average bear, ends up in a primate sanctuary run by John Landon (Brian Cox) and his nasty son, Dodge (Tom Felton, finally doing something other than Draco Malfoy). It's a tough transition, but it isn't long before Caesar has taken over the facility, given all of the other apes an improved version of Will's drug, and staged a massive break-out, which leads to hundreds of intelligent apes running amuck in San Francisco, taking on the cops and creating massive mayhem that we know will eventually lead to our imminent downfall and enslavement. And according to the movie, we most certainly have it coming.
Yes, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes absolutely follows the moral code established in recent years in terms of who lives and dies. You either have it coming or you're totally selfless, and the humans (as in, you know, all of us) deserve their fate. That said, the movie is decidedly PG-13. There are very few on-screen deaths and almost no blood, and those that meet their demise follow the established formula. But it's still terrific fun, filled with homages to the original, and setting a brisk pace that picks up nicely in the film's closing moments.
Are there parts that are goofy or ridiculous? Oh, absolutely. Are the humans fairly one-note characters, despite the best efforts of the players? Most definitely. But the motion capture, combined with what is an extraordinary performance from go-to motion capture guy Andy Serkis, turns Caesar into a simply amazing creature. He's emotional and intense, full of wonder and pain, absolutely the star of the movie despite James Franco's name above his in the credits. He is truly the character you care most about and most for, and when he leads his revolt, it's hard not to root against your own species. Sure, it's a popcorn picture, and one that is going to be forgettable by the time the leaves start changing colors. But Rise of the Planet of the Apes stands on its own. Undoubtedly, the studio would love a sequel, but the movie does not demand one, since the future was made more than 40 years ago.