Rise of the Planet of the Apes - 3 1/2 smiles

With its skillful blend of live action and motion-capture technology, “Rise of the Planets of the Apes” is an engaging prequel to a familiar story that finally answers the question, Why? This tale feels surprisingly fresh given that it is the fifth Planet of the Apes film since the original 1968. The story is told from the viewpoint of the extraordinarily intelligent chimp, Caesar (Andy Serkis). And it is Serkis’ skill, along with the technology behind Caesar, that’s so appealing. Caesar’s intelligence comes from a drug he absorbed in utero while his mother was experimented on by a pharmaceutical company. After the experiment goes awry, Will (a charismatic James Franco), the lead scientist on the experiment, takes Caesar home where he grows to love him and teaches him sign language. Because Will’s father Charles (John Lithgow) has dementia, Will is convinced that the drug he developed can help him. And, as Caesar grows and his intelligence expands, he begins to question his place in the world. And there’s lots of action in the last act of the movie when Caesar’s combative streak gets him sent to a primate shelter where he organizes the chimps, orangutans and gorillas and then engineers an escape across the Golden Gate Bridge. But at the film’s core are moral questions about genetic engineering. Caroline (Freida Pinto), a primatologist and Will’s love interest, warns Will that he is trying to control things that don’t want to be controlled.

Caesar’s nuanced performance couldn’t be achieved without Andy Serkis’ highly effective motion-capture performance and he manages to give Caesar a wide range of emotions. According to Serkis in the Miami Herald, ‘It’s a great journey of this innocent who has a profound moment of self-recognition that he’s not part of the species he’s been brought up and loved by, and so he’s this outsider, this freak who has yet to really find out who he is.’ And the key to making Caesar look real is his eyes. Weta Digital, a company in New Zealand, tracked Serkis’ pupils and relied on markers placed on his face to chart the movement of his eye muscles. ‘If you can track all the muscles of the face then you can figure out what the eyelids are doing and then you can figure out what the eyes are doing,’ said Joe Letteri, senior visual effects supervisor at Weta. And with realistic eyes comes a believable character. “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is the type of summer blockbuster that you want but rarely get. See it; you’ll be pleasantly surprised. 8/7/11