Does the film that began the reboot series hold up?
The Planet of the Apes is not a film series I have ever fallen in love with. I think I saw some of the recent ones when they were released, but not 2017’s War of the Planet of the Apes, and not the most recent outing, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (yet). I wanted to familiarise myself with the films again in preparation for Kingdom, so I decided to watch Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), the first in the reboot series.
Full disclosure: I have never seen any of the original movies from the 60s and 70s. I have, of course, absorbed the general premise of those movies through pop culture osmosis (fine, yes, mostly through the best Simpsons bit of all time), but I think not having seen the originals makes for a slightly more interesting viewing experience.
I just couldn’t help but notice that if you lacked the context of the original films when watching Rise, you might think this was one of the most baffling stories ever put to screen. But we’ll get to that.
The Premise of the Rise of the Planet of the Apes
After testing a cure for Alzheimer’s on chimpanzees results in greatly increased intelligence in a baby chimp named Caesar, but also in the closure of the programme, lead chemist Will (James Franco) decides to raise Caesar in his home.
That is a much-diluted and streamlined version of the premise because if I’m being honest, I had no clue what this movie was about for most of the first half of the movie. Sure, I was following along with what was happening, but the point of the movie eluded me. The film jumps between premises and plotlines and set-ups at an alarming rate.
Knowing a little about where this film series goes narratively and knowing that this is the first movie in a reboot series, I went into Rise expecting this to be the story of how humanity was wiped out and replaced by super-smart monkeys. I thought the lab setting at the beginning of the movie was just there to establish whatever chemical accident that would prove to be humanity’s end and then we’d cut to five years later and we would be in Monkey Mode.
Oh, how wrong I was. As the lab where Will worked was turning into a primary setting in the movie I thought, okay, fine. This is a movie about Will. He’s got a dad with Alzheimer’s (played by the legendary John Lithgow), a girlfriend who’s a vet (played by Freida Pinto who unfortunately could’ve been cut from the entire movie and not changed a thing), and now he’s got a baby chimp to raise. It’s about family! Soon, the apocalypse will begin and they’ll have to band together to—
Aaaaand cut to eight years later and Caesar is all grown up and attacking a neighbour before being sent to monkey jail and Will all but drops out of the movie. Okay, wait, hold on. We’re nearly forty percent into the movie by the time this happens and this extremely long first act feels a little laborious.
The film does do a good job of making you feel for Caesar once the second act begins, but it does come at the expense of any meaningful development for the human characters for the rest of the movie.
Hail, Caesar!
Caesar faces tremendous danger in the ape shelter. It’s heart-breaking to watch him try to shake hands with his fellow apes only to get attacked and tranquilised, but it’s here that the movie starts to shine. Who doesn’t love a good prison escape? If the movie had gotten to this point faster and spent less time with the human characters that it clearly doesn’t care about, this would’ve been a better movie. Alas.
Sure, some of the developments in Caesar’s escape plan are a little convenient, but that’s okay because it’s fun to watch an underdog, and the performances and visuals are tremendous. Andy Serkis who did the motion-capture and (spoiler!) voice for Caesar, imbued the character with an impressive level of personality. Caesar and the other apes are magnetic to watch, too. They look simply fantastic.
I mentioned earlier how someone with zero context for the series might have trouble with this movie, and that’s where Rise’s strange pacing and set-ups come into play. There’re a few obvious nods to the premise of the original movie—news articles about missions to Mars going astray—that might make an unaware viewer scratch their head. These aren’t too intrusive though, unlike the whole ‘virus’ issue.
The virus that uplifts the apes is, shockingly, fatal to humans. Multiple scenes and beats are devoted to developing this side-plot, which completely threw off my expectations for where I was in the story. Silly me for expecting this narrative to be paid off in any way. Instead, we’re treated to an infographic over the film’s credits depicting the spread of the virus across continents, which just feels weird.
As we got more and more scenes of the ape handler (Tyler Labine) getting progressively sicker, I honestly thought we were ramping up for a climax where the apes escape into a world gone mad and have to contend with a sick human race trying to exterminate them leading to a battle etc, etc.
As it was, we got an admittedly fun sequence where the apes fight the police as they cross the Golden Gate Bridge, but I was a little deflated when I realised that was the climax of the movie. People online love to complain about movies being over two hours long, and Rise comes in at 106 minutes, but I wanted it to be longer! Give me a two-and-a-half-hour ape movie. I’m already watching an ape movie. You might as well give me the most ape movie you can give me.
The Conclusion of the Review of the Rise of the Planet of the Apes
I feel like maybe I’ve been a little too hard on Rise. It’s messy, and I found it to be a little burdened by the weight of my own expectations, but I did enjoy it. Caesar’s journey is compelling, and if you don’t find yourself feeling for him, you’ve got some evolving to do. The prison escape and bridge crossing sequences are worth experiencing, and the visual effects are stunning.
If you’re thinking of catching Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, I’d say it’s absolutely worth watching Rise beforehand, and I’m looking forward to catching up with the rest of the series.
***
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