CGI technology is too miraculous for its own good in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a prequel or origin-myth to the 70s franchise about a world ruled by apes (there was also a forgettable Tim Burton remake in the early 00s). Andy Serkis of Gollum fame performance-captures Caesar, a chimp rendered super-smart by an experimental Alzheimer’s drug ingested in the womb from his late mother – and he looks like exactly what he is, a case of human features grafted on a monkey face. First he’s a cute monkey-baby with enhanced expressions – then one day he turns sulky and uncommunicative, scowling when his human ‘father’ asks him to get in the car, and we know he’s turned into a teenager (a human teenager, but whatever). The effect is vaguely cheesy, like those paintings of dogs playing poker.
We know what’s going to happen, of course; Caesar will end up leading a simian rebellion against human oppression, thereby paving the way for a planet of the apes. We know this but Will Rodman (James Franco) doesn’t, Will being the scientist who administered the drug to Caesar’s mum in the first place, then watched her go ape (sorry) and have to be put down. Clearly, this drug makes chimps violent. Clearly, a chimp who ingested this stuff in the womb needs to be watched very closely – but instead Will plays happy families, blithely refusing to worry. He does no further tests on the drug, using it to help his Alzheimer’s-stricken father (John Lithgow, that great moon-faced loon), and ignores his girlfriend (Freida Pinto) whose role consists mostly of sounding dire warnings. “This is wrong, Will!” she warns. “You’re trying to control things that aren’t meant to be controlled!”. Will doesn’t care, even when Caesar grows sullen and moody.
Throughout, the CGI is so vivid – and the animals so anthropomorphic – that it seems absurd for the human characters to dismiss them as “stupid monkeys”. The old 70s films had actors in monkey suits, but it mostly worked because those apes were evolved, halfway-human apes; here, on the other hand, they’re supposed to be ordinary animals, making their obvious emotional range a bit surreal. The whole thing feels like a talking-animal cartoon without the talking – though, towards the end, there’s talking too, Caesar bellowing “No!” with all the tortured drama of Charlton Heston clocking the Statue of Liberty. That’s after he attacks a nasty neighbour (Caesar, not Charlton Heston) and the film turns into a prison movie, with sadistic wardens and a wise orang-utan in the Morgan Freeman role.
Apes is entertainingly bad, like watching Macbeth acted out by chimps in cowls and tunics – though it’s getting good reviews, its clean narrative line coming as a breath of fresh air amid the incoherent summer movies. Caesar looks thoughtful, making plans for world domination. His expression is grave (and not very monkey-like). Later, he teaches his friends the importance of solidarity. Crouching in the prison yard, he takes a twig and snaps it easily – then takes the two halves and tries to snap them again, but of course it’s more difficult. Alone we’re weak, together we’re strong. The other apes nod sagely, enlightenment dawning in their primate brains like the monkeys in 2001: A Space Odyssey when they first used a bone to conk the enemy – except those monkeys whooped and made monkey noises whereas these ones nod sagely, like the CGI creations that they are.
Bottom line? I was close to helpless giggling throughout Rise of the Planet of the Apes yet it’s very watchable, in a B-movie way. Caesar learns how to fight in prison, and how to pick the lock in his prison cell. The climax is the uprising itself, with overhead shots of hundreds of apes rampaging through San Francisco like a herd of cattle. Where did all these apes come from? Were there really that many apes in one holding pen, plus the monkey-cage in the city zoo? Did San Francisco secretly harbour dozens of apes, living undercover and waiting for the big day when they’d throw off the yoke of human oppression?
But there’s no point worrying about that, just as there’s no point asking how we get from a few angry apes in San Francisco to a planet ruled entirely by monkeys. The film’s explanation is a new version of the Alzheimer’s drug, which turns out to be fatal to humans and destroys mankind like a plague – but the virus only spreads if a victim comes in contact with infected blood (e.g. by having an infected person sneeze on them), and I’m guessing we’d be able to work this out and isolate sick people before all 6 billion humans died. Then again, you might as well ask how the whole world blew up in the original Planet of the Apes and the Statue of Liberty somehow survived. Forget the logic, feel the CGI.
DIRECTED BY Rupert Wyatt
STARRING James Franco, Freida Pinto, Andy Serkis
US 2011 105 mins.
