Rise of the Planet of the Apes is amazing! This is now one of my all time favorite movies.
Andy Serkis is amazing as Caesar and James Franco is excellent as Will.
The movie starts out with a scene in the jungle reminiscent of a Jane Goodall book. Cut to foreigners chasing after chimpanzees, causing panic and chaos. One chimpanzee is taken away to a research facility and she is identified as number 9 “Bright Eyes”. She has been injected with the research drug ALZ-112. They are researching a cure for Alzheimer’s and it seems they have found it as Bright Eyes is gaining amazing cognitive abilities.
Will convinced his boss to allow him to present his findings to the board and as he is doing this, the handler is trying to bring Bright Eyes to Will in the conference room. Things do not go as planned, she escapes, kills one worker and she is killed by security. As the handler comes to find out, there is a baby chimp in her enclosure that she was merely protecting. I am not sure how they would not know she has given birth but I am going to let that flaw slide because the rest of the movie was fantastic.
The head of the company, Steven Jacobs (David Oyelowo) tells the handler that all the chimps are to be put down. The handler convinces Will that he needs to take the baby chimp home until he can find a sanctuary. The baby chimp, Caesar, shows amazing cognitive ability from the start. Will’s dad, Charles (John Lithgow) has Alzheimer’s and is growing worse every day, so Will decided to inject him with ALZ-112. He recovers and actually is better from this drug.
Will, his girlfriend Caroline (Freida Pinto) and his dad take Caesar to the Redwood Forest, where after an encounter with a snarling German shepherd, he starts signing questions about his birth to Will. Will explains to Caesar what happened to his mother, Bright Eyes and that he is his “father”. Andy, with his remarkable acting, shows the internal struggles that Caesar is having in regards to himself. He wants to know who he is, much like a human teenager.
After biting off the neighbor’s finger while protecting Charles, Caesar is taken by animal control. Animal control turns out to be filled with chimps, orangutans, and gorillas. There is a particularly heinous “keeper” named Dodge Landon who is brilliantly played by Tom Felton who also played Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter. Caesar starts figuring things out immediately and befriends an orangutan who also knows sign language. He also starts releasing “Buck”, a silverback who is in a separate area, and asserts himself as the leader.
At the research facility they start testing ALZ-113 on different apes and one ape, Koba, shows amazing cognitive ability also. When they are first using the aerosol on Koba, the handler is exposed to the spray, which it is found out has different effects on humans.
Eventually all this leads to Caesar escaping, going home to Will’s, getting the new version of the drug ALZ-113 and releasing the aerosol spray into the air at animal control. This makes all of the apes significantly more intelligent. The head of animal control witness the apes having a “meeting” and does not recognize what it is and leaves for the night. When Caesar defies Landon when he is told to go into his cage, he speaks his first word “No”. This is the most pivotal point in the movie and was absolutely riveting!
Caesar shows more control than most humans and stops them from killing Rodney (Jamie Harris), the other keeper, who never hurt him. The apes escape and descend on the city. There is an excellent scene when they cause a rain of leaves in a neighborhood as they take to the tops of the trees, moving towards the city. They raid the research facility first, freeing all of the apes there and they move to the zoo and release the apes. The police and animal control attempt to stop the apes by blocking them on the bridge. Caesar instructs them to go above and below the bridge. There is quite the standoff, in which both ape and men are killed. Caesar stopped another ape from killing a man but his limit was reached when “Buck” the silverback he befriended at animal control is shot. He allows men to be killed to pay for this death. Koba is allowed to kill Steven Jacobs, who pleads with Caesar to help him. Will follows Caesar and his army to the Redwood Forest. In the forest, Will asks Caesar to come home and Caesar’s response is “Caesar is home”.
Through a series of events, the researchers find out that the virus that makes the apes more intelligent actually kills humans. The virus is spread through contact with bodily fluids. And another virus attacks the world; this is how the Planet of the Apes comes to be!
I cried, laughed, stared and was absolutely astounded by this movie. Andy Serkis who was the voice of Gollum in Lord of the Rings was recommended by Peter Jackson knew Serkis was right for this role. The director, Rupert Wyatt, the actors and the team that created this movie deserve kudos and awards! I cannot wait to see more!
-Valerie Bowman
