Review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) by Victor T — 25 Jul 2014

Having already tried, and failed, to bring the legendary franchise to the new millennium with Tim Burton, a new reboot was given to us with the hopes of injecting new life to the franchise by making it more appealing to the 2010s audiences instead of trying to redo the 1968 original which is the better way of making a good film instead of angering every fan by bashing the beloved classic.

Caesar is an ape that is born in the laboratory of biotechnology company Gen-Sys, he inherit a virus named ALZ-112 from his mother, who was a test subject for said virus. Scientist Will Rodman takes care of Caesar for five years, watching how his intelligence manifests. After an incident with Will´s neighbor, Caesar is sent to a primate shelter where he struggles between his life with humans or to start a "normal" ape life in the shelter.

Taking elements from "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes", Rise succeeds in reviving the franchise to a new generation. The story is intelligent and engaging from beginning to end, Andy Serkis steals the film with his performances as Caesar, you really feel for him and all the film could have been another failure if it wasn't for him; engaging and memorable scenes, groundbreaking CGI, great pacing and subtle but amazing directing by Rupert Wyatt. But with all those amazing achievements that make this film great, there are still some problems: The human characters are really boring and bland, I never bought Franco's performance and he doesn't have much to do in this entire film and actors like John Lithgow and Brian Cox are just wasted in background characters; the essence of the five original films is nowhere to be seen here, even though the special effects are really amazing, sometime they don't feel right and lose quality in certain scenes, I would have like if they had used make up as every other installment of this franchise (it is an unpopular opinion but as a Planet of the Apes fan, it would have been nice since the make up in Tim Burtons version was amazing)and they follow lots of clichés, done good of course but with an intelligent story I would expect that they would made up new stuff instead of following clichés.

Overall this is a phenomenal return of the franchise with small problems but lots of greatness, it´s enjoyable, intelligent, engaging and exciting. Undeniably one of the greatest film of 2011 (my personal best).