Movie Review - Rise of the Planet of the Apes

It is possible for special effects to be TOO good.

Not that the excellent special effects ruin “Rise of The Planet of The Apes,” one of the latest updates to the update of a Hollywood blockbuster produced not out of artistic passion but a fairly transparent attempt to cash in on something that did have artistic passion by a Hollywood system so jaded an uninspired that they’ve simply stopped even trying to actually make original material and instead just make rehashes of rehashes of ideas that honestly weren’t that great to begin with.

Exhale.

Venting complete.

Back to the film. You already know the story. Man versus ape. Though set in the present, this film would chronologically fall in line as a prequel to the original 1968 Charlton Heston-starrer in which the term “damned dirty apes” was first entered into the audience lexicon. Something of an origin story, this latest film sets the table for how the world grows to become run by our somewhat hairier ancestors.

We follow the development of Caesar, played in digital form by Andy Serkis of “Lord of the Rings” fame who at this point must be wondering if he’ll ever get such a high grossing movie with his real face on the billboard. We first meet Caesar as a cute and cuddly orphan at a scientific lab. He’s fortunate enough to be adopted/kidnapped by a loving research scientist, Will Rodman, played by James Franco. We see boy grow into man, developing sadness and complex emotions along the way. The CGI team does a wonderful job of displaying these small changes on our furry star’s face. But herein lies the rub.

While I enjoyed seeing the apes emote, at no point was I unaware of the computerized magic behind the movements. The animals look PERFECT. And that’s the problem.

I was having a discussion last night about the current state of retouching in still portraits of celebrities. Since the advent of digital cameras and Photoshop, anybody with a PC (or Mac) and few minutes to kill can make even their most awkward uncle into Brad Pitt. It’s so easy to buff out our blemishes that to see even a single hair out of place in a major magazine causes mass panic.

We can all look perfect!

But perfection saps us of our humanity.

The cheap secret to human kind, and movie kind, is that it is our imperfections that make us unique. That thing we hate is the very thing that makes us special. Jimmy Stewart’s stilted vocal cadence. Audrey Hepburn’s long neck. Bogart’s lisp. None of these people would be considered perfect in today’s Photoshop society, but every one of them is a legend.
Great movies are the same. They wow us over despite their kinks. The great super cheesy B-movies, past and present, in who’s company any movie involving a battle between apes and humans surely exists, are rife with imperfection. Terrible corny stop-motion monsters. So called “aliens” who are little more than grown men in leotards and earmuffs (soooo wish I was making that up). Very very very very poor line readings from actors making both their debut film and their final film simultaneously. These are all hallmarks of what this kind of film is all about.

But with flawless special effects and an Oscar nominee playing our heroic cardboard cutout lead character, much of that magic is lost.

So what do I expect? Do I want them to make the movie worse? Not necessarily. But at a certain point, Hollywood began to confuse its A-movies with its B-movies. They began giving the top budgets to what really should be low budget drive-in flicks, and started short changing A-movies by relegating them to their “indie” divisions.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a proud B movie. You’ve already seen the plot. It’s essentially “The Great Escape” with apes. You’re already seen the characters. IMDB insists that Freida Pinto’s character has a name, but you’ll probably know her best as “The Girl.” Just there to be beautiful, say as few lines as possible, and reassure the audience that our leading man is, in fact, heterosexual.

It’s an enjoyable movie. You won’t be bored or disappointed. It just could’ve been so much better. Simply by being a little worse.