The story of a brilliant, but impetuous scientist, Will Rodman (James Franco), who has developed a drug to cure Alzheimers, and, while testing this on lab apes, discovers that it improves their intelligence. Vastly! To the point that the critters are a match for their human counterparts; so much so that they resent being treated like lab animals, and eventually decide to do something about it. It’s an old story. So old that it’s actually a prequel to the 1968 film, Planet of the Apes (which starred Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowell and Linda Harrison ). The original film was a big hit and spawned three or four sequels. The prequel (perhaps “re-launch” is more apt) is pretty good, too.
To be honest, while Franco’s character starts out as the protagonist of this story, he ends up being a supporting player to an ape (more precisely, a chimpanzee). The first lab primate to show remarkable intelligence was a female known as Bright Eyes (an homage to the nickname given to Heston in the 1968 film). Her offspring, an adorable baby chimp, is rescued by Franco and named Caesar. Caesar is raised like a member of the family by Franco, his dad (John Lithgow), and his veterinarian girlfriend, Freida Pinto). Caesar is at least as bright as his mom, and has the advantage of being raised much like a human child, and as he grows and matures, our attention and our sympathies shift to him.
Caesar is largely a creature of CGI (computer generated imagery), the process that, in the past several years has brought us such believable cinema creatures as the Na’vi (Avatar – 2009) and Gollum in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001 – 2003). Those were terrific, but Caesar is the state of the art CGI creation: a fully realized character, visually and emotionally, who winds up carrying the film. He is “played” by Andy Serkis, who previously performed the same function as Gollum, and then as Kong, in Peter Jackson’s 2006 version of King Kong. I’m not sure how, exactly, they do this, but this CGI thing is becoming an art form. The rendition of Caesar and his hairy cohort is far superior to the special effects costumes used in the days of yore; and this may be reason enough to go out and see this picture.
The cinematography, by the great Andrew Lesnie [The Lord of the Rings, King Kong (2005), I Am Legend (2007), The Lovely Bones (2009)] is remarkable as well, especially a beautiful scene late in the movie, in which we experience the movement of a simian horde across an urban arboreal canopy by a soft, rustling sound and then a cascade of falling leaves onto the startled street below.
The story itself is good enough, if you don’t probe the logic or the meaning too deeply. There is a Spartacus theme to it – the slave (ape) uprising, and all that – which certainly holds our interest. An underlying theme about the immorality of animal experiments and the evils of greedy, corporate Big Pharma is trite but (thankfully) underdeveloped. There are specific villains to root against – most particularly a sadistic keeper (TomFelton, better known as Draco Malfoy). And then there’s a satisfying, if emotionally disorienting, climactic battle, in which we find ourselves rooting against the humans (much as we did in Avatar – what does this trend portend?) and cheering on the apes.
Freida Pinto, as the love interest for Franco, has little to do here, but she remains attractive. Franco holds his own as the good-guy human, a reasonable man (sort of), trying to make things right in an impossible situation.
This film benefits from the big screen experience, so I’d encourage you to see it at the cineplex, rather than on the home TV, if you’re interested at all.
In general release.
No comments:
Post a Comment