I needed to see a movie like this. I've had a horrible week at work. There's a lot of stress that comes with being a teacher; let alone one working in a foreign country. I needed to see a good movie. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is very good. From the trailers it looked like a monkey uprising movie; one that would be an all out war for the planet. In actuality, it's a tragic story about finding a place in the world, freedom, and a caution about trying to play God.
I think I was most surprised by how visual the movie turned out to be. There are several scenes to choose but one that most impressed me was when the apes were in the trees and the leaves were all falling on the ground. It looked like something very powerful was coming. Since we are dealing with apes that can't talk, the actors involved had to work harder to give a more visual performance to give the characters life. Hats off to Andy Serkis. Again he shows how he can steal a scene. He brought the same kind of kinetic energy that made Gollum so memorable in the Lord of the Rings movies.
Caesar (Andy Serkis) grabs at your heart as he goes from lovable little infant to maturity. The struggles he has to fit in to the human world is something we all feel along with him. When he draws a picture of the window on the cage wall we feel his sadness and longing to go back to his childhood and the people he loves. When he's so heartbroken, depressed, hopeless, and the realization that he can't ever go home again, we see him painfully erase the picture with his old t-shirt.
This movie fits well with the established story. We see the launching of the first astronaut headed for Mars. We see the headlines in the newspapers of how the ship was lost in space.
Spoilers from this point forward! Go see it. It's the best movie I've seen all year.
It's also important to note that there isn't any kind of ape uprising in this movie. They make it clear the reason the apes take over the planet is because of humans. Will Rodman (James Franco) invents a virus that is supposed to repair brain functions. As a side effect it gave the test chimp, Bright Eyes, hyper intelligence. Bright Eyes has a baby and passes on that increased intelligence to Caesar before she herself is killed because she thought the humans were going to hurt her baby. Will uses the virus on his ailing father (Jon Lithgow) and for a while it works. He is cured of alzheimer's and is able to live a normal life; until his immune system fought back. So, Will had to create a stronger virus and make it an airborne virus that would hopefully work.
It was this airborne version of the virus that made the apes far more intelligent. Soon they are writing words, drawing more sophisticated pictures, and in one of the most shocking scenes, giving Caesar the ability to talk. However this virus had a side effect when it came into contact with humans. It kills them.
Caesar, true to his name, forms an army of apes as they break out of their prisons and fight with humans all while trying to make it to Muir Forest. And this is where the movie ends. With Caesar saying goodbye to Will, a wonderful shot of Caesar atop the tallest red wood looking out over the San Francisco Bay (symbolism: freedom) and our unfortunate carrier of the killer virus about to go fly all over the world and doom mankind.
The acting is amazing, the visuals are just perfect, and really sets up the rest of the story. I absolutely recommend it and I welcome our new primate overlords.
See you at the movies.
No comments:
Post a Comment