Review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) by Sam-Halc — 10 Oct 2011

Didn't excpect it to be this good. Nice that Caesar was a tip of the hat to Roddy McDowell, more so than Charlton Heston, he's Mr. Planet Of The Apes and this was a worthy edition to the original legacy.

The apes saga is very clever as it's given itself a free pass for sequels and prequels - The original planet of the apes is sequeled by 'return' which although a bit hammy (bar the cool abrupt end) gives us the setup for the absolutely superb 'escape from the planet of the apes' IMO actually the strongest, most brutal and striking of the original films. Seeing Cornelius and Zera change from celebrities into feared and persecuted risks to humanity was brilliant.

Conquest could have been alot better but the ideas are definitely there - battle is very hammy but takes it to it's logical conclusion at the slightly averted timeline so we shouldn't get the events of 'planet of the apes' - it could have been alot better but was done on such a small budget that the 'epic' battles look pathetic. What was sad was the decreasing budget as the series went on - certainly 'conquest ' and 'battle' had poorer makeup than even the original- to be fair I thought the lead apes makeup was very good - it's only in the crowd ape scenes you see they skimped on everyone else- Zera and Cornelius conveyed an awful lot of emotion even through the latex. I guess the new one could be seen as a 'true' prequel to 'planet' as it shows us how we got to the events without a paradox.