The worst thing about the new POTA movie is the title. Repeat "of the"s sound clumsy. And 'Rise'? Why not Dawn? Or Birth? Or even the original working title, Genesis? "Rise" is a rubbish word, and that goes double for the next Batman film.
Beyond that, the fun begins. This is the first Apes movie where the titular (don't call 'em) monkeys are all-CGI rather than Roddy MacDowall or Tim Roth in ape suits and make-up. Of course, it's Andy Serkis behind the CGI as he's the only actor in the whole of Hollywood whose facial expressions can be motion-captured by computers. Fact. I thought I wasn't going to like all this computer generated idiocy. I grew up on ape suits and make-up (it was a confusing childhood) and I've long been a critic of the misuse of rubbish CGI over more traditional sfx techniques. But... damn it if these aren't some of the best CGI fx I've ever seen, only occasionally did I remember the chimps weren't real. And no 3D either - always a bonus.
The writers have worked hard to give us a credible origin story and an emotionally involving one. Scientist James Franco is desperate to find a cure for his dad's Alzheimers. Caesar, one of the apes he's testing his new brain-boosting drug on, may hold the key. But give Caesar a brain and he doesn't want to be an ape any more - he wants to be part of the family. Inevitably we end up rooting for the apes more than the humans - and by the end of the film, so does Franco.
Rise is peppered with references to the future / past Apes movies as NASA's first manned mission to Mars takes place in the background and the astronauts are soon lost in space. The in-jokes may go a little too far when we see the original Charlton Heston Apes movie playing on a TV in the background. If that movie exists in this reality... didn't anybody heeds its warning? My favourite reference comes from Harry Potter's Malfoy, now seeking alternate employment but still a sleazebag, as he tells Caesar to, "take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!" A famous line from the original Apes epic, and one that's cropped up in a few other movies too...
