I’m not a Planet of the Apes aficionado, not by any stretch of the imagination. I saw the first one years ago, so long ago that I can’t remember anything about it, least of all the ‘twist’ at the end. So, with this in mind I didn’t approach The Rise of the Planet of the Apes (or ROTPOTA as it’s now become known) with any preconceptions or any of the usual reservations about a modern day butchering of a vintage franchise. I’m not really sure what I was expecting, but I definitely wasn’t expecting what I got.
Rupert Wyatt, who’s only achievements of note to date are small British flick The Escapist and a few episodes of Hollyoaks, has crafted a thoughtful and at times upsetting summer blockbuster. Rather than simply adopting a prequel approach, Wyatt’s ROTPOTA is more of an origins story, charting the development of Caesar, from pet chimpanzee to leader of a revolution. Set in the present day, or extremely near future, James Franco’ s scientist is determined to find the cure to Alzheimer’s. Testing on apes takes place and through a slightly iffy plot point Franco ends up taking a baby chimp home. He names it Caesar and as he grows up it becomes clear that the experiments have had an effect on the monkey, giving him advanced intelligence to the point where Caesar behaves more like a child rather than a pet. As Caesar reaches the equivalent of adulthood he starts to get exposure to all that is wrong with the world. His pure innocence and naivety is taken for granted and abused resulting in flashes of anger and aggression. He meets maltreatment in captivity with other monkeys, all the while using his advanced stuff between the ears to plot escape and revenge. Some of the scenes where Caesar gets hurt are genuinely upsetting and even at times harrowing. Much of this has a lot to do with the incredible special effects. Weta, the company behind Gollum and the updated King Kong, have raised the bar even further. Andy Serkis is again on mo-cap duty and this is easily the most impressive CG character I have ever seen. You never feel that you are watching a computer-generated ape, it seamlessly combines with the physical environment and feels totally realistic. The real achievement though is the emotion and depth that comes across through the technology. This isn’t Jar Jar Binks, it’s miles ahead of Paul (who I was relatively complimentary about), this is a proper living and breathing character. There were a number of tear-inducing moments as the camera gets up close to Caesar and you can see the pain, frustration, anger and unhappiness. All of this without any dialogue (he might be smart but he can’t speak). If it were a live actor (in the flesh) everyone would be calling this one of the performances of the year and calling for a statuette.
The development of Caesar reminded me of Batman Begins and X-Men: First Class. Caesar is Batman and Magneto, the film taking the blank canvas of the character and showing all of the brush strokes as the picture forms fully, all the hurt and mistreatment transforming the central figure into the monster that drives the film to it’s conclusion. It really took me by surprise (in a very good way), for what looks on the face of it a popcorn-fodder action flick the reality is something very different – a state of the art character piece. And a brave one at that, to put a CG ape as the centrepiece was a bold move but Wyatt does it with such confidence that he seems like the most obvious and natural idea in the world.
The ironic thing with the film is that despite the amazing characterization and acting of the lead character, the supporting cast of humans never get close to the same level and suffer from cliché. Franco is decent, but that is only because he’s watchable all the time, Freida Pinto is the epitome of filler and exposition as the love interest/some scientist or something, she has virtually nothing to do, David Oyelowo is the corporate bloke and good old Brian Cox is wasted in a bit part as the keeper of the monkey enclosure. Only John Lithgow as Franco’s Alzheimer suffering father (forming an interesting extra emotional motivation for Franco’s character) and Tom Felton (nasty piece of work) manage to do anything interesting with their roles. It’s a massive shame because if the actors managed to up their game and the writers took a bit of time to create something with more depth, we could have been talking about something in the same league as Inception and The Dark Knight. As it stands it’s probably just on the rung below, but definitely part of the new breed of intelligent blockbuster.
The final part of the film really does satisfy, the ape revolution culminating in a thrilling scene on The Golden Gate Bridge, visually spectacular and a rare treat these days to see action of that nature not in colour-drained 3D. After all of the mayhem, Wyatt impressively still takes the time to fit the last piece of the jigsaw into Caesar, the straw that breaks the monkey’s back, and then give the events of the film a wider context and suggest the possibility of the story continuing into other movies. All of this and it still weighs in at under 2 hours. A remarkably concise film with a minimal fuss approach.
Out at the same time as the much hyped Super 8 and heavily marketed Cowboys and Aliens, ROTPOTA could be seen as a bit of a stealth hit, creeping up on the competition. It’s done very well in the States and has made a very good start over here. It’s well worth checking out, not only for the technical genius of it, but also as a film about someone good turning bad as well as good old fashioned Friday night entertainment.
No comments:
Post a Comment