It's from one extreme to another here at Tuesday Night is Film Night, we are reaching out and taking in all kinds of genres. Oh yes! This week, gibbon half a chance, we won't be monkeying around, as we sample what is on offer with;
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Well that was a surprise, after being bought up on the 1970's TV series the older members of the TNiFN panel were not holding out much hope for a gratifying film based on a similar premise, how wrong we were. Luckily the junior member of the panel saw sense and convinced us to watch.
From 2011 Rise of the Planet of the Apes depicts the story of a drug development company working on a chemical treatment for brain repair, to treat amongst other things Alzheimers. Whilst in the development stage the drug is being tested on chimps. Scientist Will Rodman (James Franco) is developing the drug and early indications are very positive and the chimps are responding well, with improving cognitive behaviour. So far so good, however when the drug is shown off to the investors, the main chimp who has been treated decides to throw a tantrum and breaks out of the test environment, with the result that she is shot. At first they thought it was a side effect from the drug, however it transpires that she had recently given birth and was merely defending her young baby, who is now orphaned. So Will Rodman takes the young male chimp home.
Will lives with his father Charles played superbly by John Lithgow. Charles is suffering from Alzheimers and is pleased to see the chimp who he names Caesar. It also transpires that Caesar has been subjected to the drug therapy via his mother and starts to improve intellectually and although he was only going to stay with the Rodman's for a few days, that soon turns to months and years. Also because of the drugs effect on Caesar, Will decides to experiment on his own father with the same drug therapy and he sees remarkable improvement.
And that is where we should leave the synopsis, there is more than enough information there to get you started. Needless to stay the status quo does not remain intact for Caesar and the Rodman's.
As for the film itself, the story is really good, it kept us gripped from start to finish. The CGI content is just superb, with some very fast paced action scenes where the graphics were smooth, realistic and seamlessly integrated into the real life action. Although the chimps are CGI generated, they are from motion captured actors portraying the chimps, with Andy Serkis playing Caesar.
Further into the story we get to a primate holding centre, where Caesar is placed, we only mention this as one of the characters; Dodge Landon is played by Tom Felton, he of Draco Malfoy fame (Harry Potter), and he really plays the character well and is definitely worthy of a mention here.
Not to give too much away, the storyline follows the title of the film and it is certainly worth a watch, it will keep you enthralled hopefully for the duration, it did for us here. Although we have shied away from science fiction in the past, this film landed sufficiently on the side of the believable for it to be enjoyable and it has certainly whetted our appetite for the next installment.
TNiFN Rating 87%
IMDB Link
No comments:
Post a Comment