Review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) by Smijatov — 01 Dec 2011

While "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" is definitely entertaining for its hour and a half, it is far from a good film. The idea of the film is good - to give us a prelude to the story we all know rather well for over 3 decades now.

In films like this one expects a lot of visual effects, dumb plot and paper-thin dialogue. For a change, this is different. The dialogue is not as bad as it could have been, which goes to the credit of the writers.

That being said, it is not good either. The direction of the film is absolutely horrible, and Wyatt is obviously a rookie who should not have been given the lead with this. My biggest issue in the film was the straight-out ridiculous portrayal of the monkeys, especially Caesar.

While he is supposed to be highly intelligent and human-like, the director has taken it a bit too far, that it becomes almost a mockery and, in a strange way, insulting to monkeys. Yes, I cannot believe I am writing this either, but I felt as if it was not a positive portrayal - not that it was meant to be anyway.

Nonetheless, it made me rather uncomfortable and it's not because of the prospect of a monkey-led apocalypse. The acting is mediocre, despite the rather decent cast. The visual effects are good enough, and the monkeys are extremely credible.

I am excited to see what will happen with the franchise, but I do hope that the director will change. It has set a decent standard for the next film, which can only help the sequel, since this film wasn't too bad, but it shouldn't be too hard to make a better follow up one.