At first I thought Hanna was going to be my number one movie of the week... Well, I thought wrong... Rise of the Planet of the Apes swung by and outshone other movies... As predicted, it made a spectacular show...

Will Rodman (James Franco) has been working with a serum that could be the cure for Alzheimer for many years... After witnessing the success of the serum on chimpanzees, he was ready to test it on human subjects... However, his plan failed to impress the stake holders when the most vital key for his research, Bright Eyes, which was the most intelligent chimp born from the experiment went on rampage and was shot dead... Bright Eyes was actually trying to protect her baby that was later be taken care of by Will... It appeared that the baby chimp, Caesar, inherited its mother's intelligence and later grew up to be the leader of an ape revolution pack against cruel humans...

The Apes

It was pretty engaging for me to watch how apes could perform miracles beyond my expectations... It was spectacular and a bit scary to see a bunch of monkeys evolving from savage beasts into organized and intelligent beings, far more superior than humans in terms of physical strength and intelligence... 

Among the most interesting scenes were when the apes gathered around to learn sign language and also when Caesar said "No!!!!" to the evil Tom Felton... Seriously, this movie was full with surprises...

The best ape would be Caesar, the lead ape that miraculously portrayed strong emotions depending on what situation he was in... For example, when it was young and naive, it was so content and happy to be with Will who was really supportive and loving... However, the situation changed when Caesar got older and matured enough to feel that there was no sense of belonging when he's living among humans... Then, it also effectively showed anger and sadness when it was locked up in the shitty sanctuary... Caesar's performance definitely touched me... It forced me to be in its shoes, drawing out the empathy in me...

Caesar's effective portrayal of emotions was supported by the awesome CGI technology... Thanks to advanced CGI, the producers were able to give Caesar a face or facial expressions... I could clearly see its emotions through every facial expression it made... 

The Action

The action scenes made my jaw dropped... Like I said before, it was full with surprises... For example, when one ape was captured by animal control, the others threw spears at the human who captured it... Totally unexpected... Another one was when the gorillas used a bus as a shield to go up against a number of gunmen... Clever~

The Virus

This was pointed out by Ridhwan... The short clip at the end credit showed about how the virus that made the chimps stronger and wiser but killed humans was spread to the entire world kinda ruined the moment for the apes... I mean, before the clip, we all thought that the apes would be the main reason of human extinction... However, the virus sort of stole the spotlight from the apes... It's like, the movie was about the virus all along and now about the apes...

Freida Pinto and James Franco

I think most would agree that Freida Pinto served no purpose in the movie... Her role was very small... Besides that, it's kinda hard for me to take James Franco seriously... He did great in 127 Hours but I see him as more of a comedy guy... or maybe it's just me...

I don't quite dig origin stories but this movie was wonderfully made... The strength of this movie lies on the how well the apes performed... It's amazing to see apes doing so many unexpected stuff and to see how they showed the emotions clearly so that the audience could be empathic towards them...

4 out of 5 stars...