Paperaxle Reviews: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

I admit it. I used to like monkeys when I was a kid. Used to watch "Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp" on Saturday mornings, used to love "Magilla Gorilla", and used to love the old "Planet of the Apes" movie and television series. I used to even have a blog entitled "Monkey See, Monkey Doo" where I reviewed movies... long before Sledge talked me into doing this for you kids.

Ten years ago, Tim Burton did a remake featuring Marky Mark, and it was so bad, I was tempted to fling my own poo at the screen. Fortunately, it died a quicker death than bacon flavored root beer.

So, yeah, I was kinda dreading the new version of "Planet of the Apes". But I saw it last night at a sneak preview, and I'm not monkeying around... it's the best Ape movie of all time!

Will Rodman (James Franco) is a scientist working on a cure for Alzheimer's Disease, which his father Charles (John Lithgow) is suffering from. The laboratory Will works for is at the phase of testing the cure on a chimpanzee, named "Bright Eyes" (coincidentally the name given to the character played by Charleston Heston in the first "Planet of the Apes" movie). Bright Eyes later goes rogue and smashes up a good deal of the laboratory, and is shot and killed to prevent further destruction. It's found out later that Bright Eyes was pregnant, and the serum given her was passed from her genes into her offspring, named "Caesar" (which, if you didn't know, was played by Roddy McDowall the the last two Apes movies of the 1970's).

Because of the destruction of the laboratory by Bright Eyes, the program is to be shut down with all chimpanzees destroyed. Will sneaks Caesar out of the laboratory and into his house, and continues to work on a cure from home. When it's found that Caesar had grown progressively smarter, Will injects his father with the serum, and his father is cured.

But there are side effects to using the serum on humans. The effects are not long lasting, and sooner or later, antibodies in the human body can combat the cure, with fatal results. It can also mutant into a virus that can be passed on to other humans through contact.

Meanwhile, although Caesar is super-intelligent, he still retains his ultra violent nature. When Charles has began to lose his mental faculties, and causes an accident when "borrowing" the neighbor's car, Caesar goes ballistic when the neighbor takes his anger out on Charles. The neighbor is beaten and bitten by Caesar, and the chimpanzee is ultimately taken away by Animal Control and locked up, and lives in a cruel habitat with other simians.

It is here that Caesar plans to use his fellow apes to overthrow his captors, and breaks out of the compound, and releases an airborne strain of the cure to his fellow prisoners, which all become super smart. Caesar and his army begin to use his army of gorillas (guerrillas?) to dominate humanity. At a mid-end-credit scene, it is shown that the deadly anti-Alzheimer's serum will wipe out most of humanity in the coming days.

Lots of good Easter eggs in this movie as well, besides the two examples mentioned earlier. The head of the research facility is named "Jacobs", who was the producer of the first five "Planet of the Apes" movies (Arthur P. Jacobs). The main orangutan (and Caesar's friend) is named Maurice, after Maurice Evans, who played an orangutan in the first of the Apes movies. There is a newscast of the first manned flight to Mars, the Icarus, which was the ship piloted by Charleston Heston in the first movie of the series, setting up a possible sequel. And of course, the immortal line "Get your paws of me, you damn dirty ape!" is also used to great effect in this movie. Great prequel movie to the Apes series!

I'm giving this 105 minute movie a high recommendation, with 4 King Kong Bundys and a banana peel. It's the banana peel that keeps this movie from becoming a classic, but it's close.