Those who know anything about me at all--and really, I mean anything--know I have a weird thing for James Franco. I suppose my fondness for Franco all started when I saw him in the made-for-TV movie James Dean as the iconic star. Since then, he's been in a string of movies--some memorable (the Spiderman trilogy, Pineapple Express, and his Oscar-nominated performance in 127 Hours) and some not so memorable (Tristan & Isolde--which I loved despite it being a BAD movie, Annapolis,
and Flyboys). Arguably, James Franco likes to keep things interesting: he writes, he reprises roles on soap operas, he does art, he has a bajillion degrees, he even teaches?! (See the picture above for proof the boy is quirky!) I guess the question really is what can't he do? Well, up until this weekend's release of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, he hadn't headlined a big-budget summer blockbuster.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes is not your baby-boomer parents' Planet of the Apes (or even the forgettable Mark Wahlberg telling of the tale). Technology has come a far way, and instead of humans in ape costumes, Rise of the Planet of the Apes' apes are all computer-generated. There set is not a bunch of plastic caves, but modern-day San Francisco. Beyond the more realistic look of Rise of Planet of the Apes, this prequel is much darker. Sorry guys, there's no "Get your hands off me you damn dirty ape!" The beloved cheesiness of the original series is non-existent here.
Will Rodman (James Franco) is a young scientist at Gen-Sys who is on the way to finding a cure for Alzheimer's. The is a backstory to Will's motivation to find a cure--his father, played by John Lithgow, suffers from Alzheimer's. When his brain cell regenerative formula, AZ-112, is tested on Bright Eyes, an ape who shows dramatic signs of improvement from the drug, all seems to go well--until it doesn't. On the day Will pitches AZ-112 to the Gen-Sys board to get approval to begin human testing, Bright Eyes gets aggressive and wreaks havoc. While everyone attributes Bright Eyes' aggression to a flaw in the AZ-112, turns out, she was protecting her newborn baby. The newborn, whose existence is unknown to the execs at Gen-Sys, is the only ape not to be put down because Will takes him home.
The AZ-112 virus passed down vertically from Bright Eyes to Caesar (the name given to the baby ape, played by Andy Serkis--Gollum in Lord of the Rings), which causes him to have advanced intelligence, even compared to his human counterparts (yeah, the Alzheimer's cure apparently creates crazy smart apes!). But, despite Caesar's crazy intelligence, he still is an ape with ape desires--swinging from trees, climbing to great heights, being outside... But, despite his apeish desires, Caesar becomes one of the family and Will very much is Caesar's father (James Franco as fatherly?! Swoon).
The real drama begins when Will's cure, which works--he tries it on his father and his intelligence is not only restored, but improved--backfires, not only on his dad, but on Caesar who seeks to protect Will's dad in a moment of vulnerability. Acting out on his ape and human instincts, Caesar lands himself in an ape "sanctuary" with Will unable to do anything about it. The place is anything but a sanctuary; rather, it's a place where the apes are caged up and mistreated by the humans who cage them. It does not take long for the brilliant Caesar to grow resentful and angry of his new environment and his captors. He designs a plan to help all the apes escape and exact their revenge on the humans who have been nothing but cruel to them. Amidst all the chaos, what species will prevail?
There's a little bit of a love story between Will and Caroline (Freida Pinto), but that takes a backseat to the bigger picture. James Franco even takes a backseat to the bigger picture (shoot darn!). This movie is all about the apes and what they are capable of when driven to inhumane extremes. It would be naive to think there is no social commentary going on in this movie: warfare, how people treat one another, how people treat animals. But, I will let you be the judge. For those of you going into this movie hoping to relive the corny days of old, you'll be sorely disappointed; however, the lesson to be learned seems very much the same.
I enjoyed this movie, but admittedly it's not for everyone: it's dark, there is violence, there is more of a focus on animals than people. But, if you are looking for a summer blockbuster with some depth, take a couple of hours and see Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
