Movie review - Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Director: Rupert Wyatt

Stars: James Franco, Andy Serkis, John Lithgow, Freida Pinto, Tom Felton

Screening: general release

Rating: **1/2

Yet another Hollywood remake we didn’t know we needed, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the second attempt to reboot the science-fiction franchise that began with 1968’s Planet of the Apes starring Charlton Heston, Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowall in a monkey mask.

Tim Burton’s slick 2001 Planet of the Apes “re-imagining” starring Mark Wahlberg improved immeasurably on the prosthetics, but was otherwise forgettable.

This time around there has been much, er, chest-beating about the apes in Rise having been almost entirely computer-generated.

Actor Andy Serkis, who helped bring the precious Gollum to life in the Lord of the Rings movies, is back in performance-capture mode here.

You know the drill: Serkis walks the walk, drags his knuckles along the ground and all that and the visual effects wizards at Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital come in and layer photo-realistic animation over his movements.

The result of all this monkey magic? Something that’s more lifelike than a gorilla-gram but still too fake to ultimately make you care much.

Maybe that’s the fault of the script, which walks upright for only part of its predictable trajectory.

Perhaps it’s leading man James Franco, who sleepwalks through a performance akin to his famously heavy-lidded stint as Oscars host.

Maybe if both of these elements drew us in and pushed all the right buttons emotionally we might be more willing, more able, to suspend our disbelief.

As it is, watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes feels like we’ve merely swapped one form of fantastical fakery (prosthetic masks and make-up) for another (CGI).

The story is exactly as the title suggests: setting the scene for the original film and its four sequels, we learn how the primates came to be running the show on Earth.

Franco’s scientist, desperate to develop a drug to cure the Alzheimer’s robbing him of his father (John Lithgow), adopts one of his genetically enhanced laboratory chimpanzees.

But Franco’s experimental drugs have made Caesar (that’s Serkis under there somewhere) smarter than your average ape, increasingly self-aware and, thus, very dangerous.

Torn between his family bond with Franco and Lithgow and his growing realisation that primates will always be caged in by humans, Caesar goes alpha male, breaks loose and leads his fellow simians to freedom – but not before a rampage through the streets of San Francisco.

Tom Felton, aka dastardly Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies, plays a particularly cruel animal keeper who you know will eventually regret trying to show Caesar who’s boss.

The close-ups of Caesar pulling freakishly human facial expressions are fascinating, and a marvel of technical achievement.

But these glimpses of joy, fear, hurt, anger and grief are just that: brief ripples of emotion on a surface so glossy it becomes distracting.

The scenes of screeching apes swinging from the rafters, swarming across the Golden Gate Bridge and scampering up giant redwood trees don’t work as well as the close-ups and, after a while, you may as well be watching Transformers go berserk.

Which is to say that you end up caring as much as you might care for a talking semi-trailer that’s been written off in a Decepticon fender-bender.

That’s the problem with films like Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Transformers and Thor and Sucker Punch. The technology that’s supposed to adorn them and enhance them eventually takes over.

In and of itself, the CG wizardry in Rise is a triumph, and the visuals razzle and dazzle in all the right places.

But it all amounts to digital squat because the human dimension – of both the fake apes and the apparently real actors – doesn’t connect enough to complete the illusion.

The first time around, with Heston in a loincloth and McDowall on horseback, it was the magic of make-up that helped make humans look more like apes.

More than four decades on, computers have helped make a supposedly superior blend of human and ape, but all you can see is the machine.

Yes, the machines – they’re the ones we really need to watch out for.

Now, over to you. Have you seen Rise of the Planet of the Apes? Is this review too harsh? Or maybe you intend to give this movie a miss - why?

What's your favourite movie with a monkey in it? Do you prefer your sci-fi movie primates masked or computer-generated? And are you fed up with Hollywood remakes/sequels/prequels?

Share your thoughts here.