Rise of the Planet of the Apes

It’s ten years now since the last attempt to revive Planet of the Apes, and Tim Burton’s reputation is still suffering from it. Very few people, I must say, showed much interest in this new blockbuster version, a prequel with a loose basis in one of the old films. The cast did nothing to excite me, the trailer looked mostly daft and after all, the original came from another time: the power of its final twist is long-gone and never to be repeated.

So I was surprised that the reviews of Rise were mostly positive, and didn’t mind going to see it. And then I was even more surprised to find I enjoyed it quite a lot. I went in expecting little, but came out satisfied and appreciative. And it’s quite an odd experience, to be in the cinema, rooting for the downfall of your own race in a piece of fiction.
The premise here is that the highly-evolved apes are the result of a virus developed to combat Alzheimer’s. Our scientist is not only a good-looking charmer but a passionate worker because his own father has degenerative Alzheimer’s and is suffering with it. After a breakthrough, the drug seems to be workable, but an ape used as a test subject goes berserk (because she has recently had a child and has become protective) and the project is aborted. Our intrepid doctor, Will, takes the baby ape home rather than letting it get destroyed, but the virus has been passed from parent to child…

Will is not a very interesting character, and though John Lithgow from Third Rock from the Sun does a good job being likeable and pitiable as his father, it is not the human element that makes the film work – it is the apes. The baby chimpanzee grows up into a powerful, highly intelligent primate who of course ends up wondering what he is and where he belongs. It is when he inevitably goes too far protecting his adoptive family that the story really gets interesting: he ends up in a facility for apes, and begins to realise how he can change the system – and (slightly contrived though the way it happens may be), make others like himself.

Andy Serkis is well-established now as the premier actor for not actually appearing onscreen, having computer-generated models overlaid on top of them. Not only Gollum has marked him out, but another primate: King Kong in the 2005 remake. And a combination of his performance and the way the story is told makes the audience care about Caesar the ape and what happens to him. Different species provide remarkable cultural shorthand for human characteristics: we know the gorilla is the muscular, bad-tempered brawler, and the flanged orangutan is wise and stoical, but also with great strength. What in the trailers looked like a daft swarm of animals becomes identifiable through a series of recognisable characters, which makes all the difference.

Surprisingly worthwhile and effective, I’d call it well worth seeing. Tom Felton’s dodgy American accent notwithstanding.