Rise of the Planet of the Apes – Review by Liam Morgan Sinclair-Dempster – January 2, 2012

 

CFN – First off, I enjoyed this movie thoroughly. No matter what I say after this, I really did enjoy this movie a lot. So please keep that in mind, as I try to stay objective in this review of the movie.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes, or ROTPOTA’s as I will never refer to it again is a Sci-Fi, Action/Drama prequel to Planet of the Apes. It is set in present day San Fransisco, where Will Rodman, played by James Franco sets into motion a supremacy battle between Apes and Humans. The Story starts with Will having developed a potential cure for Alzheimer’s. But his chances of setting it into motion this cure is shattered when one of his chimp test subjects, Bright eyes, goes into a rampage around the lab and building before getting shot. His boss, Black Greedy Douche, shuts him down and orders the deaths of all the infected chimps.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28Z_D9Grh18


Will however gets coaxed into taking Bright Eyes Newborn Chimp home, to save his life. We are also introduced to his father, who I shall call Bill. Bill Names the Chimp Caesar. Caesar is discovered to have great intellect and have gotten the smartness of his mother from genetics. Caesar has inherited his mother’s high intelligence, and learns quickly.

Skip to Eight years later and through a string of events, Caesar gets sent to Animal Control.

Will tries his best to get him out, and also finds out that the Alzheimer’s cure is not potent enough to withstand he human immune system in the long term. This sets him out to try and create a more aggressive strain, which after telling Greedy Douche about the ability the original strain had to make people smarter, he has all teh resources to do.

Meanwhile, Caesar has become distant and started dominating the Apes at the center. Now we have been introduced to multiple different apes. Buck, the Gorilla at the Center, who is locked permanently in a cage, Until Caesar frees him and gains his loyalty. Rocket, the previous Chimp in Charge, who Caesar gains the loyalty of by hitting him on the head with a metal gas can. Maurice, a ex-Circus Orangutang who seems to be closest to Caesar and is with him almost since they meet. There is Also another Ape, Named Coba who is experimented on by Will with the new, more aggressive strain. He is potentially the third most intelligent next to Maurice and Caesar since next to Caesar he had the virus the longest. He is also my favorite of the Apes, I call him Colby.
Soon Ceaser gives all the apes in his center the new strain and they all escape, and Caesar speaks. Also it is revealed the new virus is lethal to humans and has already claimed a victim. The Chimp handler.

Caesar leads the apes to free all their brethren in the city and takes them to the bridge to get to freedom, the redwoods. The apes run across the bridge, and awaiting them is a line of guns, but they find a way around this. A third of the apes go under (Lead by Maurice), and a third go above (Lead by Rocket) and Ceaser leads the rest straight into the dragons cave.

Using a very cunning strategy the Apes take out the humans with minimal casualties on either side. Buck has however, died heroically taking out a chopper. As the remains of the chopper hang precariously off teh edge of the bridge, Greedy Douche was shown to be inside and is still alive, but barely holding on. Caesar allows Colby to get the kill by pushing the chopper off with his foot.
The Apes then make their way into the woods, where Will find them and asks Caesar to come home with him. With this Caesar speaks again and says, “Caesar is Home”. The apes climb into the great redwoods and the credits roll. It is not over though and we find another has the killer virus and accidentally spreads it around the world. Roll real credits.

Overall this was a excellent movie, with a couple flaws. The ending could have been better and at points the CGI was blatant. The movie was not predictable save for a few parts and it constantly kept my interest. It does the franchise proud. The Movie does a very good job at character development and making us feel for the Apes and Main cast, however the secondary cast is nothing more than background and I usually felt nothing for them, especially when the chimp handler died. However when Buck died it brought forth emotion when you knew he was going to sacrifice himself, and when he did.

I honestly believe they should have done more with Koba, with his introduction and all the development of his hatred towards humans. They could have done more with him and they should have, I kept wanted to see him do more, like Buck and Maurice.

I also want to see a sequel. Good sign.

Your Reviewer: 

Liam Morgan Sinclair-Dempster, a 17 year old student who enjoys writing, acting, and pizza, and I am a fan of movies!

I am not some big type hot shot reviewer, who believes his opinions are better than anyone else’s.

I just want to give a view to a movie from a young fan viewpoint. I’m just a guy, saying what a guy thinks of a movie. The average Joe’s review you could call it. I just want people to understand that a movie can be enjoyable, and bad, or good, and not.

KAV Productions

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