Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
Coming into this movie I had only seen the original Planet of the Apes film, which I previously wrote about on this blog, and the 2001 remake directed by Tim Burton (Ape Lincoln!). Rise of the Planet of the Apes serves as both a reboot of the series and a prequel. It tries to have it both ways in this respect like X-Men: First Class which also came out in 2011. This is a bit confusing as Rise of the Planet of the Apes sometimes goes out of its way to tie itself into the original (mentions of the spaceship) but at other moments features new ideas and concepts from the sequels such as Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Honestly, this could've easily been its own movie not part of the POTA series, which is apparently how it was originally conceived. Although I love the original 1968 film, I never understood why this  became a franchise, other than the popularity of the first movie, which felt very stand alone.

The original POTA film implies that a nuclear war caused human civilization to end and apes to rise, but this movie has the apes become intelligent as a result of drug testing while a related epidemic takes a huge bite out of the human population. There are also a lot of callbacks to the original film. While some of these are subtle such as Caesar playing with a toy Statue of Liberty, others are more obvious like the use of the line "Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape!" which occasionally took me out of the movie. To be fair these references are done well and fit in naturally (except for the spaceship stuff which was tacked on) and wouldn't be noticed by people who haven't seen the original. There are also parallels to the original such as the main characters being put in captivity and hosed down. I thought these generally worked even though inverting the original film is kinda strange since that story in itself was an inversion of humans and apes. You could title this movie Planet of the Humans!

In Rise of the Planet of the Apes a bio-tech company creates a drug that allows the brain to repair itself and is intended to be a cure for Alzheimer's Disease. When testing seems to go wrong, the apes being tested on the project are all put down except for one baby who is taken in by scientist Will Rodman (James Franco). Rodman only intends to keep the chimpanzee temporarily but discovers that the ape inherited high intelligence from its mother due to the drug and decides to raise it. The ape, named Caesar, learns more as he is raised by Rodman but craves to explore the outside world.

Caesar is the main character of the movie and despite not being human, this his story. The film really shines whenever Caesar is the focus. Caesar has a fascinating character arc going from a subservient chimp living with humans to leader of the apes. Caesar communicates with the other apes using sign language which is subtitled. I thought this was a creative spin on things as it differs from the original film with talking apes while also telling the story well without a ton of dialogue at times. Andy Serkis does a great job yet again with the motion capture acting. The CGI used for the apes was very good. I usually still realized I was watching effects but this was mainly with the eyes and faces. The textures of the hair were better than I anticipated and the movements from (I assume) motion capture are very fluid.

Both Rodman and his father (played by John Lithgow who I didn't know was in this movie coming in but puts in a nice performance as usual) with Alzheimer's Disease are interesting but there isn't much to the other human characters. Freida Pinto's character doesn't have much to do other than her introduction scene at the zoo and is nothing more than James Franco's girlfriend after that. If there must be a love interest can she at least be integrated into the story more? Tom Felton, best known as Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movie series, does a good job of playing a mean villain. However, we never get any motivation as to why he is a bad guy. I think the intention was that he has a shitty life and is taking it out on the apes in the primate shelter but this never actually comes across. Besides Serkis, Felton and Lithgow are the acting bright spots but don't have that much screen time. Everyone else is average at best.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is well paced. I've frequently complained of recent Hollywood blockbusters being too long but this one comes in at a sleek 105 minutes and doesn't overstay its welcome.
The movie is not without some plot problems. For example, if you had a neighbor who has Alzheimer's disease and also owns a chimp, would you leave your car keys in your unlocked vehicle which is parked on a public street? It doesn't help that this is a pivotal scene which sets up the rest of the film.
The climax is a cool action set piece on the Golden Gate Bridge. While the scene is well made and fun to watch, wouldn't it have made more sense for the apes to just get past the bridge (or find a more discreet way) to the Muir Woods as quick as possible instead of making a stand?

Despite some issues I still liked Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I would place Rise somewhere in the middle of the chasm between the great original film and the crappy 2001 remake. I can't say I'm excited for the sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, teased in the post-credits scene, but at least it will have Gary Oldman in it.
6/10

Spring Wrap-up Part Two

Planet of the Apes (1968)
I am a big fan of science fiction films so it might be surprising to my readers that I had not seen this movie before out than a few clips. Of course I already knew basic idea thanks to the influence Planet of the Apes has had on pop culture (such as the Dr. Zaius song from The Simpsons!) and had the ending spoiled since I was a kid. The funny thing is that I had seen Tim Burton's 2001 Planet of the Apes movie back when it first came out on DVD. I didn't like it much except the "new" ending and that is probably part of the reason why I didn't get around to seeing the original until recently.
Planet of the Apes is based on the novel of the same name by Pierre Boulle. Boulle was also the author of the book which was the basis for the film The Bridge on the River Kwai which I wrote about a few months ago. Rod Serling, creator of the Twilight Zone, received a writing credit on the screenplay. His main contribution that made it into the film was the ending, which I've heard is quite different from the book.
Coming into Planet of the Apes I thought it would be more campy because of the basic premise and numerous sequels. I knew that the movie had a good reputation but ended up being better than I expected.  The film touches on the topics of evolution, religion, treatment of animals, vivisection, and war without feeling forced or heavy handed. In some ways the story can be compared to Gulliver's Travels and even inversion of King Kong. The concepts of human aliens living on different planets and aliens that speak English with no explanation were par for the course when it came to science fiction movies and TV shows of the era. Planet of the Apes plays off of these concepts and indirectly parodies them with apes and the ending.

The acting is very good even though most of the cast is in under heavy make-up are the human characters can't speak. Along with The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur this is one of Charlton Heston's signature roles. I only noticed Roddy McDowell from his voice but he is awesome as usual. Linda Harrison did a good job as Nova, a "primitive" human. Maurice Evans does a nice job as the villainous Dr. Zaius.

The directing and cinematography is very good and certainly better than I expected. Director Franklin J. Schaffner would later win a Best Director Oscar for Patton.

The make-up on apes looks great even today. I just hope that CGI doesn't turn this aspect of filmmaking into a lost art! Planet of the Apes was one of the first films to have a major large scale merchandising tie-in. The movie has a great score by the great composer Jerry Goldsmith.

Even though I pretty much knew what was going to happen it was still absorbing and kept my attention.
It's interesting to note that Planet of the Apes was came out in 1968, the same year as 2001: A Space Odyssey. While there has been several great science fiction films made before these two, I feel that this was the turning point for sci-fi films to be taken more seriously as a genre in pop culture than simply monster movies.
Planet of the Apes spawned four sequels of varying quality which I haven't seen yet. Last year's Rise of the Planet of the Apes was a surprise box office hit despite its clunky title so I'll have to check it out sometime.
9/10

Airheads (1994)

Airheads was directed by Michael Lehmann, who also directed one of my favorite movies, the cult classic Heathers. Airheads contains a few satirical elements but is not a full blown satire like Heathers. Maybe it would've been better had it gone in that direction, but I still like it as a fun little movie about rock n' roll. The basic plot is pretty simple: a struggling band (the Lone Rangers) takes over a radio station and holds the DJs hostage in order to force them to play their song and let it be heard over the airwaves! Most of the movie takes place inside the radio station so instead of a contained thriller we have a contained comedy!

Airheads features early roles for Adam Sandler and Brendan Fraser. Steve Buscemi puts in a nice supporting performance as usual. The rest of the cast includes a lot of familiar faces such as Chris Farley, Michael McKean, Harold Ramis, Judd Nelson, Ernie Hudson, Michael Richards, Joe Mantegna, Marshall Bell, and a young David Arquette. There are a bunch of appearences by musicians such as Lemmy, Rob Zombie, and MTV anchor Kurt Loder. Beavis and Butthead even have a cameo as callers to the radio station!

This is probably as close as we'll get to a Wayne's World 3 even though the humor between the two movies is different. While I liked the movie, it could've had a better title as "Airheads" could fit for a lot of movies and doesn't have anything to do with the music aspect of the movie.

6/10

Machete (2010)

A couple of months ago I wrote an extensive review for Hobo with a Shotgun. In that post I mentioned how I had actually seen Machete (which I preferred) before that movie. Hobo is more gory with a grim tone, while Machete is almost as violent but a more fun, outrageous, and wild ride.

Machete started out as a fake trailer for the movie Grindhouse and expands the basic plot we saw there. Despite starting out as a trailer for a movie that didn't exist, Machete is a true modern exploitation (in this case Mexploitation!) movie that is a lot of violent fun. Somehow they got Robert DeNiro to be in this movie which also features Steven Seagal in a rare role for him as a bad guy! Danny Trejo plays the title character with Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Don Johnson, and Cheech Marin (as a gun toting priest!) in supporting roles. I'm not a Lindsay Lohan fan but she is put to good use here.

My favorite lines were "Machete don't text" and "Machete improvise!"

There are plans for two sequels currently titled "Machete Kills" and "Machete Kills Again... in Space"! I don't know about you, but I really want that Machete in Space movie!

Machete is the second Robert Rodriguez directed movie I have seen with the first being The Faculty. I quite liked both movies so he is another director whose work I need to seek out.

7/10