Movie Review – Rise of the Planet of the Apes

It’s time for another weekly movie review!
 

This weekend we saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes. 

This was not my first pick for a movie this weekend.  I have been seeing the trailers but said it didn’t look like something I really wanted to see.  It looked very sad.  I don’t do well with animal cruelty.  I suggested the Change-Up for our weekend movie but Adam said it looked stupid and he wanted to wait until it came out on Redbox.  (If anyone has seen it please tell me if it was good so I can talk him into seeing it now).

Well he talked me into see this movie instead and I was really dreading it.  But I needed something to review today so I tried to just step back and look at it objectively.  Didn’t work.  I was totally sucked in! 

Let me start by telling you what it’s about:
There is a man named Will that works for a company creating pharmaceutical drugs to cure Alzheimer’s.  They of course do testing on chimps.  Something goes wrong in the trials and the apes had to be euthanized. One of the females had a baby and they didn’t realize it (PUH-LEEZE).  Will took in the baby (Caesar) and raised him without the company knowing.  Soon, he realized that the drugs given to the mother were passed on to the baby and everything is perfect.  Over the next 5 years he studies Caesar and further develops this drug.  Caesar becomes part of the family with Will and his father.  During an altercation between Will’s father and the neighbor, Caesar attacks the neighbor causing him to be locked up in an Animal Sanctuary with other apes.  Caesar, who is incredibly intelligent, figures out ways to get in and out.  He eventually over throws the people keeping him there and leads all the apes in a revolution!

The movie did have a few instances where I got teared up because of the animals but overall it was a great movie. 

1.  Did the trailer/preview give the entire movie away?
No not at all!!  I love surprises in a movie and this definitely had a couple.

2.  Is this a MUST see in the theaters or do you wish you had just rented it or is it that bad that you would have to wait for it to be free on TBS?
I could go either way really.  It was a great movie that I’m glad I saw but not something that MUST be seen in theaters.  It would be just as good when it hits Red Box.

3.  Which movie star do you think MADE this movie?
Caesar of course!  You forget that he is not a human.  I also loved James Franco (Will) and John Lythgow (Will’s father).   One thing that made me feel a little better about this movie was that I heard there wasn’t even one real monkey actually used in the movie.  They were completely CGI animations.  I would have never known!

4.  Predictability?
You know what’s going to happen (as with most movies) but it doesn’t give away the hows and whys.

5. Rating?
I’m changing my rating scale from 5 stars to 10 stars.  I feel like I’m limiting myself too much with just 5 stars.  So I give this movie a solid 8!  It did have some cruelty to the animals as expected but I found myself cheering them on to rise up and be liberated!

This was the first Planet of the Apes movie that I have ever seen so I have no idea how it relates to the ones before it.  From what I think I know about the previous ones I think the apes talked and completely acted human? Maybe even from another planet or something crazy?