Movie #287 Rise of the Planet of the Apes *2011*

I have never seen any of the Planet of the Apes movies.  I have seen bits and pieces, but never any of them all the way through.  I do know the basic premises of most of them.  One thing that I do know about them is that they are usually metaphors for something else.  The first one was about racism, another was about consumerism and so on. 

In the trailer for this movie it looked as if the film makers totally threw out the idea of making a socially conscious film and instead decided to focus on how good the CGI apes looked.  Well, that might still be the case in the final film, but I did enjoy it enough to warrant going to the theater to see it. 

The movie takes place in modern times.  A scientist is working on a cure for Alzheimer's.  He is testing the cure on apes.  When things go wrong in the lab, his program is shut down.  The scientist then steals some of the cure and a tiny ape to take home.  He gives his father some of the cure and it makes him better (for a while).  He raises the baby ape who's mother was exposed to this cure also.  The medicine has given both the mother ape and her son exceptional intelligence.  Often times more than the human characters in the film. 

The young ape, Cesar, learns sign language and many other human characteristics before escaping the house nd getting caught.  He is put in a monkey sanctuary for his benefit.  However, this sanctuary is home to some of the most cruel and sadistic "care takers" I've ever seen.

The film is shown largely from Cesar's perspective.  An interesting idea that works really well for the story.  You see his rise to power in a way that I don't think any of the other Apes films do.  And about that CGI, it really does look good.  I have heard of people crying in the movie and recommending Andy Serkis, who wore the motion capture suit for Cesar, to get a best actor nomination.  I think all of that is crazy talk.  This is an entertaining movie with a clever set up.  Not much more.  The actual human characters in the film are lifeless drones or totally characterizations.

I give Rise of the Planet of the Apes ★★★.