Rise
of the Planet of the Apes
Rated PG. Our Ratings: V-4; L -1; S/N -1.
Running time: 1 hour 50 min.
 |
Caesar and Will realize they must go their separate ways. © 2011 20th Century Fox |
The righteous know the needs of their animals,
but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.
Proverbs 12:10
Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker,
but those who are kind to the needy honor him.
The wicked are overthrown by their evildoing,
but the righteous find a refuge in their integrity.
Proverbs 14:31-32
At last, a summer blockbuster that appeals to the mind as well as pumping
up our adrenalin. Directed
Rupert Wyatt’s origins tale (these are sometimes called prequels) joins
a long line of sci-fi cautionary
tales, such as Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, The Fly, and Jurassic
Park. Like the protagonist in those stories, genetic scientist Will Rodman
(James Franco), working for a giant corporation in San Francisco, oversteps
his bounds when he develops a serum to combat Alzheimer’s disease and
injects it into a laboratory chimpanzee and then his Alzheimer-ravaged father.
The serum so enhances the female chimp’s cognitive performance that
the project’s business director calls the major investors together
to announce the its development. However at that very moment the chimp goes
berserk when a technician enters her cage. Attacking him and dashing out
of her cage, she wreaks havoc in the lab and the corridors of the building,
crashing through the boardroom’s plate glass window and landing on
the table. She would have attacked them had not the guards shot her dead.
The director cancels the serum and orders all the other animals destroyed,
but then a newborn baby chimpanzee is discovered in the cage. It was not
the serum, but the chimp’s fear that harm was meant her infant that
led to the attack.
The director will not reconsider lifting his ban, so Will sneaks the baby
chimp home and some serum. He soon discovers that the altered genes of the
mother have now been passed on to the infant. Caesar, as he names the little
one, develops his skills even faster than a human infant, As the months and
then years pass, Caesar is able to think and communicate through signs better
than any human child. The bonds of affection grow between him and Will, and
then between chimp and Will’s lover veterinarian, Caroline (Freida
Pinto).
When Alzheimer’s threatens to strip Will’s father Charles (John
Lithgow) of all memory, the son sneaks some of the serum out of the storage
vault and injects it into his parent. Charles improves dramatically, even
able to return to what he once loved and taught, playing classical music
on the piano.
Of course, neither Caesar nor Charles continues on their upward path. When
Caesar attacks a neighbor whom he believes is harming Charles, the authorities
remove the chimpanzee to what is supposedly a primate shelter, but which
is run by an indifferent director who has a sadistic son working there as
a caregiver. Caesar is devastated by the separation and abuse, eventually
believing that Will has abandoned him. How he seizes control of his destiny
by taking over leadership of the captive primates and leading them in an
all out war against the humans constitutes the second, more action-packed,
portion of the film. One delightful incident in the film is when the primates
rebel When they attack the abusive Dodge Landon, he shouts, “Get your
stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape!” Now where have we heard that
before? (Back home Will also is dealing with the tragedy that his father’s
immune system has reacted against the serum so that the old disease has returned
all the stronger.)
What we might call the Battle for the Golden Gate Bridge is an exciting climax
to the film. Here the use of CGI is very effective, with actor Andy Serkis
(remember his Gollum in Lord of the Rings?) perhaps turning in the best performance
of the film as Caesar. Indeed, all of the actors playing primates are excellent,
their faces and eyes expressing so well the emotions welling up in them as
the sadistic caregiver uses his electric cattle prod to inflect pain and
fear on them. When the credits roll, do not leave right away, because a series
of lines showing the path of an airliner will tell the tale of a calamity
unwittingly overcoming humanity, and thus setting the stage for the sequel
that is probably well along development for release next summer.
If ever there was a film that demonstrates that ill treatment, better, oppression,
will lead to disaster for both inflictor and victim, this is it. The film
raises ethical questions about the nature and treatment of primates, especially
in the light of the Spanish government adopting a law making it a criminal
offense to experiment or upon or abuse primates. Also the likelihood of unintended
consequences. Besides the Scriptures listed above, one might examine Ecclesiastes
11:1 and Galatians 6:7. If I were a youth group leader, I would be using
this film to explore a number of important issues to faith and life.
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