Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes – Some fun but it adds up to a load of monkey business

In years to come this slice of monkey business might be seen as something of a guilty pleasure, a slightly camp classic with several sequences featuring just chimp noises instead of dialogue. That said, at the moment it looks like a slightly daft, slow, science-heavy and tension-light adventure, albeit one with impressive visuals and effects.

Here’s the science bit; James Franco is Will Rodman, a scientist working on a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s a personal crusade for Will as his dad (Lithgow) is struggling painfully with the condition. Will tests a new drug on a primate which seems to have remarkable effects. It increases the chimp’s IQ and actually helps the brain repair its cells. However when the chimp goes nuts in the lab it is shot, but leaves behind a newborn – it wasn’t being aggressive, but protective. Will adopts the baby chimp, Caesar, who seems to have inherited his mother’s massive IQ, and has the same side-effects as the drug – green flecks in the eyes.

Will is so convinced by the drug’s value he – illegally – injects his dad with it, and Rodman senior suddenly goes from playing chopsticks on the piano to Chopin. Will has also by this time fallen for vet Caroline (Pinto), and his world seems complete. However Caesar however is exhibiting some strange side-effects, and a court order puts him in a sanctuary run by the evil Landon (Cox). Caesar however has learned sign language, and organises a mass break-out with all the other primates trapped in the prison.

Apart from a repeated line from the original classic film – yep, “Get your hands off me you dirty ape” appears again, with a surprising pay-off – what’s remarkable about this remake is how little fun it is. Franco is far too earnest and indie for his part, Pinto is merely decoration, and Cox’s nasty zookeeper is as bad as his hair dye – his American accent gets worse as he gets older. There’s a big set piece at the end on San Francisco bridge, which is technically well done and visually precise, but it’s too late in the piece to pick up the pace, which for most of the film is far too doddery. It’s a real oddity – does the world really need another Apes movie? – and apart from some vague stuff about big companies’ greed for profit there’s no real contemporary theme to it.

The chimps themselves are expertly realised – a cruel fan might say the computer-generated primates are better actors than the humans – and there are some laughs when they organise their prison break-out – with the help of some subtitles and lots off ooh-oohs. The violence is kept to a minimum to secure a certificate tailored for the younger audience, who may well be as baffled as the adults.

Overall verdict: An oddity, somewhere between a spoof, serious eco-theme and daft adventure. Some fun on the way but it adds up to a load of monkey business.

Reviewer: Mike Martin