I thought RISE was a decent movie, a somewhat solid throwback to those 50s/60s sci-fi movies which were about ideas and characters, not just an excuse for mindless FX-laden action scenes. Of course RISE does court the one movie scientist trope I sorta despise. You know, the "how dare you play God!" nonsense. But it's not so bad in RISE is only because of James Franco's scenes with his father John Lithgow, which sells that angle.

Of course the movie really cooks when Caesar gets thrown into the zoo and we get a good execution of the ole reliable jailbreak picture. God you should've the crowd at my screening enjoying themselves immensely when the sadistic zookeeper meets his just deserts.

Now if you know your monkey movies, RISE is basically a down to Earth contemporary retread of CONQUEST OF THE APES. I thought Andy Serkis in body mo-cap delivered a wonderful performance from surrogate child to misunderstood teenage victim to revolt leader, up there with his Gollum but arguably more impressive considering he has no dialogue. Isn't it wonderful to be impressed by FX again?

Hell even the climax on the Golden Gate Bridge, which easily could've come off as nonsensically stupid you would find in a Michael Bay movie, works because it's quite compelling and sorta intelligent. (You gotta love that scene of the total gorilla assault on the helicopter.)

RISE has two slight flaws though. One, there is some chaotic editing with characters and subplots introduced and then forgotten. Usually this is a good sign that this was heavily recut in post-production. (Well they did a good job in the editing bay.)

Two, well the ending itself.

Click to reveal..
How is Caesar able to talk? Franco's syrum or whatever gives him super-intelligence boasting that ultimately makes him comparable to a human being if not more clever. But how does that mutate his body into giving him vocal chords to talk? Most animals, especially chimps, don't have the chords that humans do. Even if Caesar wanted to say something, his own biology would prevent him from speaking like a human. For an otherwise decently-smart picture, this is a rare blight.


But otherwise, a likeable Hollywood popcorn sci-fi thriller that doesn't insult your IQ or imagination unlike say BATTLESHIP.

(Also the title is bullshit. It was scripted, shot, and presented to Fox as RISE OF THE APES. That's an awesome, simple title full of power. The Marketing department shoehorned the RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES to directly tie itself into that film franchise. To be fair looking at it's box-office totals, I guess it worked in spite of that mouthful.)