A British View.Rise of the planet of the apes was a lot better than I assumed it would be, I have to admit. I went in with low expectation and came out having enjoyed it. This is my bullet-point review:
Apart from one or two close up chimpanzee shots, the apes all looked amazing throughout.
The writers did a great job at making me back the apes from the get-go; I was completely on their side and that surprised me. Usually I absolutely hate CGI characters and the fact we’re often supposed to be on their side (Jar Jar Binks, Avatar, Garfield, iRobot, Transformers; hell even Shrek) annoys me a lot.
There are a few badly written characters, a lot of overly evil humans that are used to help us justify hating humanity but I liked the main human protagonist and didn’t hate the acting too much.
There really was one really powerful scene that made the film for me. A quotation from the original film left the theatre chuckling slightly and muttering to the person next to them. This was followed by a completely brilliant line which literally shocked the audience into silence. A guy behind me actually went “oh boy.” Considering that everybody knew this was going to be a Planet of the Apes film, I was really impressed. The creators managed to show the apes improve at such a great pace that their “evolution” continued to shock an audience who already knew the final result.
And finally, there were a couple corny lines (most of which you’ve heard in the trailer) that turned some of the human characters into stereotypes. The greedy businessman with a lack of morals, the desperate scientist that’ll break the rules for his research, the gun happy American police, the jerk neighbour… I can sorta forgive that though, there was a lot of stuff that needed to happen and it saved time for the ape storyline, which is what I really wanted to see.
All in all, it was a good film. Worth watching but nothing amazing, I’d say if you have Orange Wednesday, Student Tuesdays or some other way to watch films cheaply at the cinema then totally go see it. If not then rent the DVD. I couldn’t see myself watching this multiple times though.
