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It’s been quite a busy summer at the movies this year…one after another, the spectacles descended upon us with varying levels of success. I’ve only gone to a few of the “big” movies in this season because many of the big entries just didn’t really interest me. Had quite enough of fighting robot fun, raccoon-eyed pirates and various comp-gen’d cartoons over the years already and never really got into the whole wizard soap opera , so those were an easy pass for me.
I checked out (and thoroughly enjoyed) most of the comic-inspired flicks…”Thor” pleasantly surprised me with its great balance of earthbound fun and otherworldy adventure (and that star-making turn from Chris Hemsworth – what a great new screen presence!) The “rewind” of “X-Men” proved to be a real class act…with two great leads and a fun, old-fashioned scenery-chewing villain that made for a great romp. And while a certain lantern basically flickered out, Captain America proved to be the perfect wrap for the comic book movie summer….a great hero played with genuine sincerity and without a trace of camp (that was left to Hugo Weaving’s delicious turn as “Red Skull”) by Chris Evans and the whole production was just terrific and fun to watch.
But it was the summer’s last major entry (for me anyway) that got the biggest “rise” of enthusiasm out of me….
“Planet of the Apes” has always been special for me…the first real series of flicks I fell for (yes, kids, there was something before “Star Wars”!). The Bond series was always fun to check out when I was a kid, but it was the “Apes” flicks that really worked for me. Started me collecting way back when and even my first “Sideshow” 1:6 scale figure was a POTA character…Dr. Zauis introduced me into that now-familiar realm of wonderfully rendered collector figures. Heck, I’ve still got a few of those POTA Mego figures stashed away somewhere. POTA fed my collector habit long before that galaxy far, far away did…
I’ve enjoyed the occasional visits to that “Apes” world over the years…the Sideshow figures, the various comics, the various video re-releases and retrospectives, the novels and yes, even that awful costume party of an attempted re-launch from Tim Burton a few years back had its moments of creepy-weird fun.
When I saw the trailers first appear for this latest film, I’ll admit…I wasn’t too impressed. It just looked like some odd cgi-infested action romp with no real story. So…when this movie finally came out, I went as an “Apes” fan hoping that this was not just some kind of warped cash-grab off the corpse of a once-great franchise, but something worth watching.
What unspooled on that screen blew me away. It was an emotional, well-written, well-performed story about a character’s journey from birth to adulthood. It may have been an extremely effects-driven production, but the effects were truly created and produced to serve the characters and the story, so much so that they become the best kind of effects….the ones that “disappear” and let that story and those characters be the focus.
Again, if I only had one word to describe this movie, it would be “emotion”. From joy to despair and everything in between…they all come to play during Caesar’s story. Another major aspect that worked for me was all of the great scenes that played WITHOUT dialog….not just the ones featuring the apes, but action scenes that also featured great character moments that really helped establish the apes as characters and their relationships with one another (especially evident in the sequences of the apes moving through the city and across the bridge). It was more than just little “character moments” happening here, it was groundwork being laid for how these apes related to one another.
Some scenes on the surface seemed like conventional ways to advance the story, but were executed with such energy that they were a joy to watch, like the montage of Caesar climbing and swinging through the Redwoods as he grows. The soaring score and perfectly executed effects made this exhilarating to watch. Another scene that was downright giddy to view was Maurice and the zoo Orangutans leaping off the bridge and swinging their way beneath the span – such great energy, again perfectly scored and produced…it crackled with great spirit as did many of the scenes involving the apes.
But even with all of the terrific action and well-paced adventure, the core of this movie is Caesar. The effects folks, the director Wyatt and Andy Serkis have created the perfect blend in totally realizing this character….someone we grow quickly to care about and share the journey with.
Like I said earlier, I’ve always enjoyed the “Planet of the Apes” saga and it’s many incarnations…the wonderful surprise here is that the latest take on this broad, amazing tale is indeed, one of this saga’s best moments.
“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is a keeper for me…a movie to be viewed again and again...and thanks to the great care everyone involved, it moves the story forward while still bringing enough elements of what’s come before along to make it fit into the overall saga and…makes me anxious to see what comes next…
A truly great way to wrap this summer at the movies…
Less a Rise, More a Resuscitation!
I checked out (and thoroughly enjoyed) most of the comic-inspired flicks…”Thor” pleasantly surprised me with its great balance of earthbound fun and otherworldy adventure (and that star-making turn from Chris Hemsworth – what a great new screen presence!) The “rewind” of “X-Men” proved to be a real class act…with two great leads and a fun, old-fashioned scenery-chewing villain that made for a great romp. And while a certain lantern basically flickered out, Captain America proved to be the perfect wrap for the comic book movie summer….a great hero played with genuine sincerity and without a trace of camp (that was left to Hugo Weaving’s delicious turn as “Red Skull”) by Chris Evans and the whole production was just terrific and fun to watch.
But it was the summer’s last major entry (for me anyway) that got the biggest “rise” of enthusiasm out of me….
“Planet of the Apes” has always been special for me…the first real series of flicks I fell for (yes, kids, there was something before “Star Wars”!). The Bond series was always fun to check out when I was a kid, but it was the “Apes” flicks that really worked for me. Started me collecting way back when and even my first “Sideshow” 1:6 scale figure was a POTA character…Dr. Zauis introduced me into that now-familiar realm of wonderfully rendered collector figures. Heck, I’ve still got a few of those POTA Mego figures stashed away somewhere. POTA fed my collector habit long before that galaxy far, far away did…
I’ve enjoyed the occasional visits to that “Apes” world over the years…the Sideshow figures, the various comics, the various video re-releases and retrospectives, the novels and yes, even that awful costume party of an attempted re-launch from Tim Burton a few years back had its moments of creepy-weird fun.
When I saw the trailers first appear for this latest film, I’ll admit…I wasn’t too impressed. It just looked like some odd cgi-infested action romp with no real story. So…when this movie finally came out, I went as an “Apes” fan hoping that this was not just some kind of warped cash-grab off the corpse of a once-great franchise, but something worth watching.
What unspooled on that screen blew me away. It was an emotional, well-written, well-performed story about a character’s journey from birth to adulthood. It may have been an extremely effects-driven production, but the effects were truly created and produced to serve the characters and the story, so much so that they become the best kind of effects….the ones that “disappear” and let that story and those characters be the focus.
Again, if I only had one word to describe this movie, it would be “emotion”. From joy to despair and everything in between…they all come to play during Caesar’s story. Another major aspect that worked for me was all of the great scenes that played WITHOUT dialog….not just the ones featuring the apes, but action scenes that also featured great character moments that really helped establish the apes as characters and their relationships with one another (especially evident in the sequences of the apes moving through the city and across the bridge). It was more than just little “character moments” happening here, it was groundwork being laid for how these apes related to one another.
Some scenes on the surface seemed like conventional ways to advance the story, but were executed with such energy that they were a joy to watch, like the montage of Caesar climbing and swinging through the Redwoods as he grows. The soaring score and perfectly executed effects made this exhilarating to watch. Another scene that was downright giddy to view was Maurice and the zoo Orangutans leaping off the bridge and swinging their way beneath the span – such great energy, again perfectly scored and produced…it crackled with great spirit as did many of the scenes involving the apes.
But even with all of the terrific action and well-paced adventure, the core of this movie is Caesar. The effects folks, the director Wyatt and Andy Serkis have created the perfect blend in totally realizing this character….someone we grow quickly to care about and share the journey with.
Like I said earlier, I’ve always enjoyed the “Planet of the Apes” saga and it’s many incarnations…the wonderful surprise here is that the latest take on this broad, amazing tale is indeed, one of this saga’s best moments.
“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is a keeper for me…a movie to be viewed again and again...and thanks to the great care everyone involved, it moves the story forward while still bringing enough elements of what’s come before along to make it fit into the overall saga and…makes me anxious to see what comes next…
A truly great way to wrap this summer at the movies…
Less a Rise, More a Resuscitation!
