Should a 2011 prequel that resembles its 1968 sequel be hailed for paying homage to its predecessor, most notably with a cultishly referential line like “Take your hands off me, you damned dirty ape!” or its melodramatic construction of the head of the ultimately demonized Gensys Corporation, Jacobs (David Oyelowo), who asserts that Will Rodman “only has one shot” to ensure the success of AOZ12? If Will, who assures Jacobs that “one shot is all I need,” is successful, he could potentially cure Alzheimer’s. If not, his toiling will be for naught because Jacobs runs “a business, not a petting zoo.”
Or, should Rise of the Planet of the Apes be seen in the same regard as the original Planet of the Apes – just without a feeling of nostalgia that has transformed a rather campy, predictable, and obvious racial metaphor into a cult classic. It is because of this paradox that Rise of the Planet Apes might be worth seeing, but it also might be worth skipping.
The primary reason to catch this film is Andy Serkis, the actor behind Caeser, the progeny of Bright Eyes, the ape that was originally Rodman’s one shot to prove that AOZ12 was a marketable product, but who was killed after escaping from two rather inept chimp handlers and being hastily labeled “violent.” As the dead body lays on the conference room table and Will is left to try to explain himself, the unknown baby Caeser is found in Bright Eyes’ cage. Preferring not to let the baby chimp be exterminating like the other dozen in the laboratory, Will takes him home and deems him Caeser. While Caser is never directly exposed to AOZ12 chemical, it was passed to him through his mother, so his intelligence is amplified ten times that of a normal chimp – or three year old human for that matter.
The anthropomorphic Caser could have been a detriment to this film inasmuch as the visual achievement runs the risk of exposing itself as blatant CGI. However, Serkis – much like he did as Gollum in Lord of the Rings – gives his character emotion, and quite frankly, the most heartwarming and emotional moments in the film are evoked because of Serkis’ subtle facial expressions as Caeser in reaction to his human counterparts.
Ironically, the human counterparts James Franco, John Lithgow, and Freida Pinto leave a bit to be desired. Perhaps they were directed to capture the melodrama of the original by only delivering predominately one line, expositive responses that rely on inflection more than content to convey the seriousness, sadness, or happiness of each scene. If so, I guess I get it, but it makes the film choppy and swings dangerously close to cheesy whenever they’re on screen.
The melodrama certainly isn’t restrained when Caeaser attacks Hunsiker (David Hewlitt), the next door neighbor who accosts Charles Rodman (John Lithgow). Somehow, throughout the documented years that Charles and Will have lived next to Hunsiker, he never grasps the concept that Charles has Alzheimer’s, though it’s not something that is hidden throughout the film, but I digress. The main issue that arises here is that Caeser is, in effect, put into an animal sanctuary that more closely resembles a prison run by sadistic warden John Landon (Brian Cox) and his son Dodge (Tom Felton).
The scenes within the sanctuary are effectively depressing, and ultimately serve to convince Caeser that he is not human, despite how he was raised and the way in which he sees himself as a cognizant, sentient being. At the same time, certain scenes also devolve to cartoonish moments that evoke images of Cruella De Vil, or the sadistic guards from Midnight Express. I suppose that Rise tries to use these scenes to mirror the racial allegory so endemic to the 1968 original, but our knowledge of the former makes the references in the latter a bit heavy-handed.
All in all, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a fun ride and a successful endeavor in the progression of motion-capture filmmaking. At the same time – and similarly to Avatar – the script and direction of the human actors seems to have been compromised in a showcasing of what can be done with a camera.
