A Planet of the Apes prequel, Rise of the Planet of the Apes gets off to a strong start. It commences as San Francisco scientist Will Rodman (James Franco) thinks he has found a cure for Alzheimer’s. But when an experiment involving a chimp called Bright Eyes goes awry, his boss pulls the plug on his entire operation. All the chimps are put down. Except for one. Will adopts a baby he calls Caesar and raises it as if it were his own child. Bright Eyes’ offspring, Caesar is unusually intelligent and quickly learns sign language. But after it bites a neighbor as it’s defending Will’s father (John Lithgow), Caesar is sent to quarantine. At this point, the mild-manner chimp becomes enraged after its caretakers prove to be rather vicious. It craftily begins to hatch an escape plan, rejecting Will’s offer to come back home. In one showdown with a guard, Caesar actually speaks and it’s this point that the movie officially jumps the shark. A human vs. chimp battle on the Golden Gate Bridge ensues and the film’s carefully crafted plot spirals out of control. To its credit, Rise of the Planet of the Apes features some of the most real looking apes you’ll ever see. The computer graphics are stunning (and for a budget of $93 million, you’d damn well better get some good-looking monkeys). But despite the fact that Will remains an ape sympathizer until the end, this movie resorts to man vs. beast clichés we’ve seen plenty of times before.
-Jeff Niesel