Honest Reviews

I got the collector blu-ray pack for the modern series for these movies (Rise of the Panet of Apes, Dawn of the Planet of Apes, and War for the Planet of Apes. Out of them, I have seen only War for the Planet of Apes which back then I thought was boring. Once I got the pack, I decided to watch the whole series this time, but sadly: the first movie isn’t as good as people rave it to people, and sadly, it started out not too good!

Will Rodman (James Franco), a scientist in San Francisco, is experimenting with a drug that he hopes will cure his father’s (John Lithgow) Alzheimer’s disease. After his work is deemed a failure, Will becomes the guardian of Caesar, an infant chimp who was exposed in-utero to Will’s drug. Caesar displays unusual intelligence, and Will decides to continue his experiments secretly. But as Caesar’s intellect and abilities grow, he comes to represent a threat to man’s dominion over Earth. (This was taken off the internet.)

For me, the big problem for this movie was how slow of a build the whole movie was. It didn’t turn out to be the fast-paced action, packed movie I wanted. In fact, it was a slow build for the final moment, and it didn’t do the movie any good on getting itself a good rating on my end. It felt slow, it felt very lame, and not going to lie: it felt uninspired in a lot of places. I feel like it struggles to keep the audiences attention because of a lot of this film lost my interest! And the characters besides Ceaser and Tom Felton’s character were just interesting and lacking character build and emotions to actually care what would happen to them.

The best part about this movie I felt like was the epic bridge scene (of course!), and just watching Ceaser growing up. But besides that, this movie shows the brutality of humans against apes, and because of that: the apes rebel against them. It’s a slow-burn sci-fi movie, but this time: it doesn’t work as effective as The Menu, Dune, or even The Candyman (2021), because for this movie it lacks being more entertaining and more trying to engross the audience more. The apes brutality was the worst part because I felt so bad, and I felt no sympathy for the human being attacked by them (they totally deserved it).

The final moment was (well it should have been) an escalating action moment, but as much as it should have been rewarding after watching the slow build-up, it left me more tried and more disliking the movie even more. The final moment did not reward me that much. By the end of the movie, I just felt tired, and mad that the final moment of the build up did satisfy me. And it just felt even weaker after seeing the final moment. As much as the theme for this movie should have worked out well, it didn’t succeed on doing much for me except maybe hesitating on watching the sequels.

Overall, this film felt more or less like a slow-burn sci-fi film that leaves you wondering if there was more to the film than what you just saw. It was a slow-build up, and the final moment for it leaves me even more disliking the film. It strives to have this interesting plot while inserting action moments in it, but for me: it doesn’t work as much as should be. This movie just doesn’t work for me, and to be honest: hardly any of this movie worked for me!

2/5

Rise of the Planet of Apes

Director: Rupert Wyatt

Writers: Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, and Pierre Boulle

Film Editors: Conrad Buff IV and Mark Goldblatt

Executive Producer: Thomas M. Hammel

Producers: Peter Chernin, Dylan Clark, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver

Cast: James Franco, Freida Pinto, Brian Cox, John Lithgow, Tom Felton, and Andy Serkis

Runtime: 1 hour 45 minutes

Rated: PG-13

Releasers: 20th Century Fox

Released: August 5, 2011