Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

I love this movie. I love, love, love this movie. I love just about every single thing in this movie. It is sweet, beautiful, terrifying, astonishing, and enthralling. You know what? I’m gonna go the extra mile, and say that it is a better film than the original. I just blew your mind, didn’t I? Yes. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a better movie than the original Planet of the Apes over 40 years ago. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Planet of the Apes to death; the Blu-ray collection of all the originals is on my Amazon Wish List. But I think that I love this more. It is a brilliant piece of cinema, and currently, the second best movie of the year, right behind Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris (as I type this, I start to recollect memories of me having extremely intense arguments with my friends [most of whom give me the ‘deer in the headlights’ look when I mention Citizen Kane] over me saying that this movie was better than Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. It currently sits two spaces below Rise of the Planet of the Apes on my ‘Best of 2011’ list, and when the year ends and I work out a way to have other work on the site, I will post a ‘Best of 2011’ list/video. But that’s not for now. That’s for then). The movie has been said to be a partial remake of the fourth film in the original series, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. And while I have not seen that film, I have seen the trailer and read the plotline on Wikipedia (extremely in-depth research, I know), and I do agree. The two movies are very similar, both dealing with an ape named Caeser (here played by Gollum/Kong, Andy Serkis) who leads the ape revolution to-basically-mess us humans up. Here, we have a scientist (played by James Franco) named Will who wants to try to find a cure for Alzheimer’s, which is very important to him because his father has the disease. During the phase in the research when they are testing on chimpanzees, they find that the one where the tests have worked best has had a baby. But due to the fact that the mother was trying to protect her baby and she completely destroyed the entire facility, the baby was going to be put down, but was saved by one of the scientists, named Franklin (Tyler Labine, who was on one of my favorite underrated TV shows, Reaper). This baby went to go live with Will, and as he grew over the years, it has been shown that his mother was tested so much with the cure that it has turned him into a hyper-intelligent ape. We then proceed to see this ape grow up in a perfect little island in the middle of the cold, dark storm we call life. And every time Caesar goes out to sea, he gets colder and colder along with the world, as he realizes what he’s been sheltered against. The movie is basically a coming-of-age tale with an ape. It is a dark film, very dramatic, and at times, a bit depressing. Sometimes, it shows a world that seems darker than the one we live in. We seem to be Caeser at times, in our island. But the only difference is that when one of us leave our island, we don’t start a revolution of the apes. And that was my philosophy. Well, enough philosophizing (believe it or not, it took me like five tries to spell that right. I love spell check). This movie is brilliant. It shows us a world more in-depth than the 60s ever did. And again, I’m not bagging on the original movie, I love it, but this is better. The directing is beautiful, the writing is outstanding, the acting is OH-MY-GOD fantastic. The Academy does need to loosen up and give Serkis the Oscar nod for Best Actor. He is phenomenal. This movie is phenomenal. I love this film. GO SEE IT RIGHT NOW! WHAT ARE YOU DOING READING THIS REVIEWS STILL? YOU SHOULD BE ON FANDANGO BUYING TICKETS!
9.5/10