Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Rated PG-13)  5 Stars

There was a real risk for the Rise of the Planet of the Apes (105 minutes) to become a cheesy knock-off worse than the ill-conceived 2001 Tim Burton remake of Planet of the Apes. Luckily, Director Rupert Wyatt and writing team Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa do an utterly superb job of cre-ating a legitimate prequel that simply begs to become a tril-ogy. The best part? The way people in the audience clap and shout at all the good bits and callbacks to the original film!

The worst part? Well, it’s hard to notice because every-thing happening is so awesome. But take a minute to think about the basic plot. A scientist working with potentially bil-lion dollar formulas takes home an ape in California WHERE THEY ARE BANNED AS PETS and nobody blinks an eye? Not even the jerky neighbor who clearly has a problem with the Chimpanzee? Not the smoking-hot ape refuge veterinarian who clearly understands how dangerous apes can get? And when the authorities are called in, he doesn’t get arrested or worry about paying a fine? I guess James Franco gave Hot Vet and Animal Control the puppy dog eyes and grin, and they let him walk.

This may have been an editorial choice, since bringing in that sort of subplot would distract from the main action, while taking too much time to explore the ramifications of the law would kill the pace. Like Mulder and Scully’s relationship, just assume it’s all happening off-screen … it’s happening, it’s distracting and so the audience doesn’t need to see it. Now we can all look forward to the deleted scenes on the super-mega DVD/Blu-Ray.

Will Rodman (Franco) is trying to cure Alzheimer’s by playing God with Chimpanzee’s and his father (John Lithgow). The chimp in question, Bright-Eyes (after Heston’s character in the original) goes a little nuts and wreaks havoc all over the expensive testing facility. This shuts down the testing, and results in a baby chimp heading home with Rodman. His father names the chimp Caesar (Andy Serkis).

It is interesting to contrast the handler’s at the testing facility with the handlers who appear later in the primate refuge; while the former are clearly professional and view the apes as worthy of decent treatment, they do tend to treat them like unreasoning animals. This is, of course, much better than the latter handlers, who treat the apes as undeserving of even a modicum of compassion. I suspect that both are fairly accurate depictions of the day to day life of the average laboratory animal. Humans are jerks sometimes.

With the addition of an adorably brilliant ape to the household, Rodman has a convenient way to pick up chicks. He meets Caroline Aranha (Frieda Pinto) when Caesar is injured by jerky neighbor, and in between helpful time advances they apparently move in together despite her opinions about his attempt to domesticate a chimpanzee, and without him explaining to her his life’s work and how it changed the chimp. Like, way to warn your new girlfriend about the way you play God, Will Rodman! And way to hold on to those vaguely formed ideas about how dangerous apes can be, Hot Vet!

Inevitably, jerky neighbor gets into a fight with Caesar, who is then shipped to the aforementioned primate refuge run by John and Dodge Landon (Brian Cox and Tom Felton. Perhaps Brian can explain to Tom the dangers of typecasting?).

Reacting in a fairly reasonably fashion, Caesar becomes depressed, stages a coup d’cage, and then foments revolution against his human masters. Really amazing film, letter perfect CGI, and competing with Source Code and Insidious for the best movie I have seen all summer.

Now showing at Wynnsong 7, Carmike 12 and Carmike Market Fair 15.