Review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) by Reece L — 22 Jul 2017

When I first heard that these movies existed, all I thought was "man, how would anyone even make a good and non-cheesy movie out of that!" And even worse, the first one of the many reboots I was treated to was Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes, which is about as cheesy as it gets. The more recent installments blew me away.

The first great thing about this movie is that it is apes who can speak and fight police teams and it's not cheesy. They pull it off beleivably. The story of how it happens makes since and is realistic. The ape CGI is also really impressive, and Andy Serkis is great as Caeser. To be in a motion capture suit and act like an ape is something difficult, and he really pulls it off well. Serkis definetly has the correct stature for an ape that makes this movie so believable.

There are other things that made this movie great. James Franco and John Lithgow give great performances, and the narrative focus on the apes and why they do what they do, as well as how the humans cause it, is amazing. There's also social commentary and thought provoking story in there which I really liked. It made me think about a lot of things afterwards.

Overall, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an interesting story featuring interesting topics, great human performances as well as believable motion capture ones and no cheesyness. It's a great, enjoyable movie that is definetly worth watching.