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Although I grew up on sci-fi films, I was never much of a fan of the Planet of the Apes franchise. Various installments would play on Saturday afternoons, but I always found the whole thing unforgivably silly, from Charlton Heston’s scenery chewing to the dated prosthetics worn by the actors playing the intelligent simians. Even the final scene of the original film, one of the greatest twist endings of all time, seemed to exist just so Spaceballs could make fun of it. And Tim Burton’s uneven 2001 remake just confirmed one of the first major cinematic sci-fi sagas as so much monkey business.
After seeing Rise of the Planet of the Apes, though, I feel that I owe the apes an apology. Treading similar territory to Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, this latest installment reboots the origin of the apes’ ascension to top of Earth’s food chain—and, hopefully, the entire saga itself. As with the previous version, it all begins with a chimpanzee named Caesar.
This time, Caesar is the product of genetic experimentation. After his mother, a test subject for a new drug to combat Alzheimer’s disease, goes berserk and is put down, Caesar is smuggled out of the lab by the drug’s creator, Dr. Will Rodman (James Franco). Will’s own father suffers from Alzheimer’s, so he’s unwilling to give up on his research. Soon, he discovers that Caesar has inherited his mother’s drug-enhanced intelligence, proving the potential of this new treatment.
Will, his much-improved father, and a local zoo veterinarian raise Caesar for three years as an odd but very warm and caring family. But for all of his advanced intellect, Caesar is still an ape, and a violent altercation with a neighborhood jerk ends with him being caged up in a primate facility. Enduring loneliness and mistreatment by human handlers, Caesar puts his advanced mind to work and begins to plan.
Caesar is, without question, the heart and soul of this movie, and the motion capture work by Andy Serkis, combined with quality computer animation from Weta Digital, proves once again that the Academy Awards badly needs a new category. Thrilling when he’s flying through the limbs of trees and over buildings and heartbreaking when he struggles to come to grips with his place in the world, Caesar always feels real and immediate. Of course, we all know where this is going, but it’s hard not to come away rooting for this singular chimp to lead his people to freedom and the future.
If there’s a significant weakness to the film, it’s the relative shallowness of the human characters when compared to the apes. They’re all either relative saints or complete villains—especially Will’s boss at the lab and the faculty of the primate facility. There’s some complexity to Will’s story—especially as he slowly loses his father to a debilitating illness—but, by the end, he’s a sideline player, a more sympathetic witness to Caesar’s rebellion.
The film includes several nods to the previous incarnation of the franchise—some subtle and fascinating, some too ham-fisted for comfort—and there are several tantalizing setups for potential sequels. I hope they go ahead with them because, like Caesar himself, this once-dismissed franchise has taken a great leap forward.
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