Review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) by Dz9 — 11 Aug 2011

The Good: Great acting, greatest CGI character ever, entertaining, touching, and a true reboot to the original. The Bad: Special effects were a little shaky in parts, undertones were too strong, and the science was too shallow.

When a sci-fi movie comes out, I always have to compare it to Jurassic Park in terms of story telling. Jurassic Park took a real premise and put their own twist on it and bent it to fit their lore and they made it work with precision.

One of my main gripes with this film is that it never sets you to truly believe in the lore. Unlike Jurassic Park, where they explained everything and showed intelligent thought behind it, Rise of the Apes is just flat, just hoping that the audience will buy into "hey apes are smart" and never question it.

Now I know this is a sci-fi movie, so I understand that to a certain extent "turning off your brain" is required, but this film simply milked that requirement too much, this wasn't something that ruined the movie, but it was significantly more than a gripe, because while watching the movie, in the back of my mind I kept saying to myself that this is impossible on so many levels and I demanded answers and the movie never truly filled that gap.

However, the shaky special effects is nothing more than a gripe, this movie did go out of its way to shove its undertones down your throat. It plays the cards of: Animal cruelty, animal testings, big corporations are bad and just want money, and etc.

Whether you agree with what its saying is irrelevant, it got to the point where the undertones were just obnoxious. Although i've spent all this time bashing the film, it actually is a really good piece of art.

The actors all step up to the plate, however some of the characters were a bit cliche'd, but overall the acting was excellent. The movie created "out of this world" emotional attachment with the apes, and even gets you to betray your species.

While movies like "Transformers" just rely on explosions and hot women to sell the film, RIse of the Apes actually creates a wonderful story and moving characters and I hope that there will be sequels.