RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
Written by: Beth B.
Opens in theaters Friday, August 5, 2011

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” directed by Rupert Wyatt is a prequel to the successful series of five films made between 1968 and 1973 by 20th Century Fox titled “Planet of the Apes”.

The first “Planet of the Apes” film depicted an astronaut crew finding a futuristic ape/human-like life form living on a distant plant with human qualities in physical features and speech. “Rise of the Planet” of the apes tells the story of the first ape, Caesar (Andy Serkis) to begin that transition with the help of a super-intelligence drug created by scientist, Will Rodman (James Franco) in his attempt to find the cure for Alzheimer’s disease in which his father Charles (John Lithgow) suffers from.

A stand-out star scientist working with pharmaceutical corporation, Gen-Sys, Will has his long-awaited moment in the sun, so it would seem, until unforeseen events detour his plans. With the future of his drug development looking bleak, Will takes-in the baby ape of his test subject ape, now deceased.

Caesar's rise

Will is accused by his boss David Oyelowo (played by Steven Jacobs) of “knowing everything about the human brain except how it works”. Enter, primatologist, Caroline (Freida Pinto) Caesar’s vet who teaches Will a deeper understanding of Caesar.

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is an emotional story of how two extremely different environments affects the growth and development of Caesar and the events in which turn him to form a revolutionary movement against all man-kind.

Only can an ape with super-intellgence given to him via the Gen-Sys drug that his foster-father, Will is formulating placed in a human and nurturing home where he is deprived of social growth, and is sheltered from the outside world go into a harsh prison-like ape facility and experience a cruel world that fuels his anger, resentment and drive to rise to the top of the food chain can set-out for such an ambitious mission.

With performance capture actor Andy Serkis playing Caesar, the audience feels every emotion expressed by Caesar during his extraordinary journey which is gut-wrenching at times. Film technology invented during the making of “Avatar” was also used and re-invented into new technologies to create digital world seamlessly co-existing with the real world thanks to Weta VFX team lead by Joe Letteri (Avatar, Lord of the Rings, King Kong).

This ape tale takes Caesar from child-like innocence from newborn to age 8, to growing into forceable adulthood in the most inconvenient way.

Fans of the original film series “Planet of the Apes” will appreciate a cameo of Charlton Heston who played Colonel Taylor, as well as character named Dodge Landon after characters Landon and Dodge from the original.
A character named Cornelius also pops-up towards the end of the film.

The ending credits revealed that some scenes were shot in Hawaii, the Zoo in Wellington, New Zealand was used as the zoo seen in the film and footage from FOX dance reality competition show, “So You Think You Can Dance” was also in the movie!

WARNING! DO NOT jump out of your seat at the end of this movie. There is a very important scene with intricate character played by David Hewlett (Stargate television series) that reveals the beginning of the plot-line for the continuation to this movie!

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” opens in theaters Friday, August 5th.