Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes

Alright, a good thing to realize right off the back when watching this is it is NOT a prequel to the 2001 Burton one. Instead it is yes, another reboot, and a retelling that is more try to the original film series. This confused me a bit, as they threw in references and clues talking about space travel and stuff in this version of Rise, but they didn’t match with the ’01 version, making me go “Whaaaa?”. Saying “Whaaaa?” in theaters is also very distracting.

Anyways. This movie did a good job of making me care about the apes more than humans. Because seriously, the biggest problem with Avatar? Fuck the Na’vi.

Fuck you too, buddy!

More specifically, if you give me a conflict between Humans and not humans, overall, I want the humans to win. Every time. Species over other species. I may not agree with all the actions (as we are supposed to feel uneasy in Starship Troopers) but I don’t want them to lose because of it. So if this movie brought up a big war with the apes and humans, I would be pissed if the apes won.

Thankfully, what it does better than ’01, is make the apes not the bad guy. ’01 made them clearly the bad guys (humans enslaved! War hungry apes!), but in this movie none of the apes are bad/evil, just a few people and that is all. It also does a good job of explaining at the end how the Apes will take over, so if they choose to continue the franchise the eggs are all in place. The only people who were really hurt were the bad humans too, and no all out war, just an escape for the apes to live in peace.

Not really a spoiler, but yeah its Franco‘s fault. He develops a drug to cure Alzheimer’s, but the testing on apes made them wicked smart. He just wanted to cure his dad, is all. Also, how good is John Lithgow in this movie? This plus Dexter season 4 shows this guy has got that acting thing down.

All in all, this is just a movie about the love between a monkey and John Lithgow.

The plot moves along at a good pace. If I had any complaint it is that the “Ape Escape” in the last half hour may have taken a bit too long.

In terms of randoms, I found his love interest a pointless add in. She didn’t seem to take away or add anything to the film, so that whole buildup was annoying. Also, the company owner in the beginning in the movie, in his first two scenes, removed and put on his glasses a total of five times. My friends didn’t notice it though. Seriously. I wrote them down for my second viewing. At 4:00, 4:10, and 4:35, and then 7:24 and 7:45 minute marks, this happens. Way too much dude.