Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Year: 2011
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Starring: Brian Cox, Tom Felton, James Franco, John Lithgow, Frieda Pinto & Andy Serkis
Runtime: 105 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 07/03/24
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Starring: Brian Cox, Tom Felton, James Franco, John Lithgow, Frieda Pinto & Andy Serkis
Runtime: 105 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 07/03/24
Despite performing well at the box office, Tim Burton’s 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes didn’t fare so well with critics. Following the first films difficult production, Burton didn’t want to return for a sequel, and the leading cast were only prepared to come back if he did, this resulted in Fox cancelling the planned sequels and putting the franchise on ice once again.
But this time we’d only have to wait a decade for another return to the Planet of the Apes, with another reboot that would revisit some elements of the sequel films whilst also forging its own original path to create a brand new storyline within the Planet of the Apes universe.
Will Rodman (James Franco) is developing a cure for Alzheimers disease and using chimpanzee’s a test subjects. When a chimp is born from one of his test subjects with accelerated learning capabilities, Will nurtures the child and tracks its progress.
Eight years later and the chimp, Caesar (Andy Serkis), has reached maturity. But when an altercation with a neighbour results in Caesar being captured by animal control, he is thrust into an environment where he must either fight for dominance against the other apes he is imprisoned with, and unite them to rise up against their human oppressors.
But this time we’d only have to wait a decade for another return to the Planet of the Apes, with another reboot that would revisit some elements of the sequel films whilst also forging its own original path to create a brand new storyline within the Planet of the Apes universe.
Will Rodman (James Franco) is developing a cure for Alzheimers disease and using chimpanzee’s a test subjects. When a chimp is born from one of his test subjects with accelerated learning capabilities, Will nurtures the child and tracks its progress.
Eight years later and the chimp, Caesar (Andy Serkis), has reached maturity. But when an altercation with a neighbour results in Caesar being captured by animal control, he is thrust into an environment where he must either fight for dominance against the other apes he is imprisoned with, and unite them to rise up against their human oppressors.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes makes a lot of the right moves to properly reboot this franchise for modern audiences, and it really comes from taking a step back and seeing what elements of the franchise outside of the original 1968 film actually worked. Writer duo Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver clung to the uprising storyline from 1973’s Conquest for the Planet of the Apes and used this as inspiration. If you’ve seen Conquest, then you’ll see the inspiration that Rise wears on its sleeves, but this is far from a remake of that film and presents a brand new story for the franchise that pays homage to what came before rather than be beholden to it.
For the first time in the franchise there’s a compelling human lead in Will. His research into curing Alzheimers is personal as his father, Charles (John Lithgow), suffers from it. It also gives a great logical explanation for why apes begin to become intelligent enough to overthrow humanity, with all these apes being experimented on with a potential Alzheimers cure that accelerates brain repair and growth.
Domestic life with Will, Charles, and Caesar takes up almost the entire first half of the film and it’s all good stuff. Painting Caesar as a child eager to learn, and dealing with Charles’ unstable mental health.
The second half of the film sees Caesar imprisoned with several other apes and seeing him rise to the position of Alpha, and using his heightened intelligence to fight back against his human captors. Violence begets violence, and Caesar inadvertently becomes a revolutionary for ape kind. It’s great character growth for a character that has almost no dialogue.
For the first time in the franchise there’s a compelling human lead in Will. His research into curing Alzheimers is personal as his father, Charles (John Lithgow), suffers from it. It also gives a great logical explanation for why apes begin to become intelligent enough to overthrow humanity, with all these apes being experimented on with a potential Alzheimers cure that accelerates brain repair and growth.
Domestic life with Will, Charles, and Caesar takes up almost the entire first half of the film and it’s all good stuff. Painting Caesar as a child eager to learn, and dealing with Charles’ unstable mental health.
The second half of the film sees Caesar imprisoned with several other apes and seeing him rise to the position of Alpha, and using his heightened intelligence to fight back against his human captors. Violence begets violence, and Caesar inadvertently becomes a revolutionary for ape kind. It’s great character growth for a character that has almost no dialogue.
That’s something else that makes Rise great, Serkis’ incredible performance. Much like his performance as Gollum in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, Serkis brings Caesar to life entirely through motion capture animation. Whilst the quality of the CGI certainly hasn’t aged particularly well, the movement is so realistic that you’d occasionally be hard pressed to not think that Serkis is part-monkey.
The range of facial expressions that Serkis can go through to communicate to the viewer everything that’s going through Caesar’s mind is incredible. He only has a couple of spoken words in the entire film, and it’s crazy how much he can communicate without them.
Lithgow also gives a strong performance as he dips in and out of Alzheimers; and Tom Felton once again does a great job of being someone you love to hate as Dodge, one of the guards at the animal shelter Caesar is sent to.
Rise is a little on the short side though, coming in at an hour and forty five minutes. I think there’s definitely a few instances where the film could have taken its time in allowing the characters to be developed a little further; such as the relationship Will forms with Caroline (Freida Pinto).
Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a strong start to what has become an excellent reboot to the franchise, and in many ways it exceeds all of its predecessors. It doesn’t have the same deep philosophical pondering of the 1968 original, but it does manage to compensate for that by having more interesting human characters, and stronger performances all round. If you’ve never seen a Planet of the Apes film before, there really isn’t a better place to start than here.
The range of facial expressions that Serkis can go through to communicate to the viewer everything that’s going through Caesar’s mind is incredible. He only has a couple of spoken words in the entire film, and it’s crazy how much he can communicate without them.
Lithgow also gives a strong performance as he dips in and out of Alzheimers; and Tom Felton once again does a great job of being someone you love to hate as Dodge, one of the guards at the animal shelter Caesar is sent to.
Rise is a little on the short side though, coming in at an hour and forty five minutes. I think there’s definitely a few instances where the film could have taken its time in allowing the characters to be developed a little further; such as the relationship Will forms with Caroline (Freida Pinto).
Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a strong start to what has become an excellent reboot to the franchise, and in many ways it exceeds all of its predecessors. It doesn’t have the same deep philosophical pondering of the 1968 original, but it does manage to compensate for that by having more interesting human characters, and stronger performances all round. If you’ve never seen a Planet of the Apes film before, there really isn’t a better place to start than here.