Rise Of The Planet Of The Minkeys

Who would have thought that Studio Fuck-up Factory Twentieth Century Fox would produce not one, but two of the best films of summer 2011. After the critical success of X-Men First Class Fox have done it again with their contemporary reboot Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes which is essentially a remake of 1972’s Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes.

It’s thought provoking, dealing with social issues of slavery, morality, the class system, and the tried and tested formula man screwing with nature…all of which is common in the previous Apes movies. It cleverly updates the familiar Apes franchise story elements like astronauts, mankind engineering it’s own demise, ape leader Caesar’s origin and Simian religion into something much more recognizable and relevant to todays audiences. The story is relatively small in scale sticking to four key locations for the bulk of it’s running time which explains it’s relatively slender $93 million production cost. What it doesn’t explain is how WETA provided some of the most extraordinary and convincing effects ever to grace a movie screen at such a small cost. It’s not like they skimped either as the climactic San Fransisco ape rampage is massive and the CGI ape characters are prominent throughout the running time.

As expected the CGI minkeys, lead by the brilliant Andy (give the man an Oscar now) Serkis out act the charisma-less human thespians like James Franco and Freida Pinto, although predictably John Lithgow holds his own. It’s Serkis as Caesar who is the film’s main character, and not the humans, that goes through the big character changes as he realises that life as a second class citizen is not acceptable to him.

The director, whose previous film was The Escapist, gives us another variation on ‘prison’ life (of a sort) and delivers a film that’s unfussy yet cinematic. And the action, again superbly realised by WETA, is utterly nail biting as the revolting (as in revolution) minkeys strategically make their escape via the Golden Gate Bridge. Forget the crappy Tim Burton version, this Apes is a lean, mean simian fighting machine.