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The Appropriate Tune - "Gorillas & Apes" by Kir
No other film series has embodied the ‘little engine that could’ spirit quite like Planet of the Apes, huh? I mean when the original film dropped back in 1968 the folks at 20th Century Fox probably thought it would be moderately successful; You’ve got a solid eye behind the camera in Franklin J. Schaffner, a big name on screen with Charlton Heston, Mr. Twilight Zone himself Rod Serling writing (a draft of) the script, and some great costume and make-up effects, you’re looking at a decent chunk of change for your spring release schedule. Except it wasn’t just a chunk of change, it was a 33 million dollar gross over a 5.8 dollar budget in North America alone, and it wasn’t just a successful film, it was a wild hit that has gone on to become one of the most famous science fiction films ever made. Not bad for a movie based on some French short story that no one had heard of before.
Although the original Planet of the Apes was clearly built to be a one and done story, once the money started rolling in the suits smelled the blood in the water and jumped on the franchise. Planet of the Apes lunch boxes, Planet of the Apes action figures, a Planet of the Apes magazine by Marvel Comics, two short-lived Planet of the Apes TV shows (one cartoon and the other live action), and of course several sequel films starting in 1970 and continuing every year until 1973. While Fox’s interest in the franchise quickly dwindled as the years went by, as one can see from the equally dwindling budgets, I think J. Lee Thompson and the rest of the folks behind the camera managed to turn things around by the tail-end and make the series a worthwhile continuation of the original film. Sans Escape from the Planet of the Apes, because that still sucked.
Then the franchise just sort of...faded away as franchises often do, existing only as parody fodder for various TV shows and what not, until several years later it was announced that acclaimed director Tim Burton was working on a reboot of the film. That film, 2001’s The Planet of the Apes, ended up being such a colossal turd that it not only killed the franchise again but severely damaged Burton’s cinematic street cred after a damn strong string of films in the 90s. Ten years later, after the stink of Burton’s film finally died down, the folks at Fox dusted off those damn dirty apes and decided to try one more time. And I guess if I’m going to cover the Next Generation Star Trek movies, I might as well cover the next generation Apes movies as well. It just wouldn’t be Halloween without a couple murderous primates on the card after all, they’re fun for the whole family.
Released in 2011, Rise of the Planet of the Apes was directed by Rupert Wyatt, written by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver and produced by Jaffa, Silver, Peter Chernin and Dylan Clark through Chernin Entertainment, Dune Entertainment, Big Screen Productions and Ingenious Film Partners. James Franco stars as Will Rodman, a scientist at the Los Angeles based company Genisys working on a form of viral gene therapy for diseases like Alzheimer’s, such as the type that Will’s father Charles (John Lithgow) suffers from. Because of the nature of the treatment the testing is performed on humanity’s closest relative, the chimpanzee, and out of all the subjects there is one where the ball finally drops. Nicknamed Bright Eyes, as the gene therapy causes green flecks in the eyes, she’s set to become Will and Genisys’ meal ticket when she suddenly goes berserk and runs amok through the facility until she is finally brought down by security. The boss of Genisys immediately declares the project a failure and orders the apes destroyed, concerned as all bosses are more about liabilities and bottom lines than anything else, but after the grisly deed has been done Will learns the truth: The virus wasn’t the reason that Bright Eyes went on a rampage, she was only acting to protect her baby. How scientists who specifically work with primates on a medical level in a highly surveilled environment didn’t realize this chimpanzee was pregnant or had just given birth is beyond me, but I guess you don’t come to Planet of the Apes for the airtight logic.
As he’s not feeling up to euthanizing a baby played by Andy Serkis, Will decides to take the little chimp and let him live with him for a while. Several years later the chimp, now named Caesar after Charles’ love for Shakespeare, is a beloved member of the household, thanks in part to those virally-altered genes he inherited from his mother. Not only have they helped his brain they’ve actually improved it, boosting his intelligence beyond the rest of his species. Yet no matter how smart Caesar might be he is still an ape in man’s world, and when he steps out of line (and maybe bites off a couple fingers) they are quick to shut him down and lock him up in the local primate shelter. Trapped behind a cage of concrete and steel with his fellow primates Caesar learns firsthand of man’s capacity for cruelty, and yet it is also the furnace which Caesar forges himself anew. The apes are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore. And if humans have a problem with that, then that’s just too damn bad.
Just as the foundation of the original Planet of the Apes was built on the landmark costume work by Rick Baker, so too is Rise of the Planet of the Apes built on CGI. While there had been ape-centric films like Congo that had used costumes and animatronics to simulate primates, it’s highly doubtful the practical effects in those films would have been able to provide the dynamic movement and expressiveness that CGI provides, and given how much of the film centers around ‘humanizing’ Caesar I don’t know if this movie would have been possible without CGI. Which isn’t to say that it’s flawless, the protagonist apes on the whole tend to look a lot better than the background apes but even Caesar has the aura of a PS3 model about him, but it looks a lot better than I was expecting. They’re also not afraid to show the apes during the day, and not in pitch black like other modern films desperate to hide their use of CGI, so I can give them points for boldness.
As I said much of the film centers around ‘humanizing’ Caesar, when it would be more correct to say this film IS Caesar, his origins, his journey et cetera, which is both good and bad. Good because Andy Serkis puts on a master class in visual storytelling as the man behind the chimp; Not once in this film was I ever confused about Caesar’s feelings or motivations because so much is expressed through his facial expressions and body language, and it goes a long way to endear you to this character as you follow them over the course of their life without a single line of dialogue. Bad because Caesar and his arc ends up outshining the rest of the cast, aside from John Lithgow who is always a treat. James Franco was good in The Disaster Artist but I cannot buy him as any sort of scientist in this movie, he looks and sounds like they pulled a drunken frat bro off the street before shooting and stuffed him into a white coat. Freida Pinto might be good but she’s wasted in a nothing role as Caroline. David Oyewolo as the conniving boss of Genisys Steven Jacobs does good, although he’s as centrally focused as an antagonist as you’d expect from one of these ‘what has man wrought’ type of sci-fi stories, and I didn’t even realize that it was Tom Felton aka Draco Malfoy as the dickhead primate shelter guard. Plus there’s Brian Cox as the seedy primate shelter owner and Tyler Labine as Franklin the Genisys ape wrangler, there’s some name recognition here but they don’t do much beyond progress the story. Which I suppose makes sense since this is meant to be the Planet of the Apes and we should be focusing, and indeed the protagonist apes do get their own character development and arcs, even if I can’t remember their names. The point stands though, this is Caesar’s ball game though.
Moving on, I wanted to note that while Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a reboot of the franchise it is not really a reboot of the Planet of the Apes. Rather it is a reimagining of the concept towards a more ‘realistic’, hard science fiction, a move which I don’t necessarily agree with. The original Planet of the Apes started out as a slightly goofy satirical attack on man’s hubris in its use of nuclear weapons (a common refrain during the Cold War) but as the story expanded into sequels the world became more complex and the relationship between humans and apes became more nuanced. As cheap-looking as those films could get in the end it still felt like they were saying something important, even if it wasn’t fully formed. This is not to say Rise isn’t trying to do the same, but they’re not really the same. The Apes in the original films were originally bred as a replacement for dogs and cats until they eventually grew intelligent enough to be transitioned into chattel slavery, a permanent underclass until they rightfully rebel against their masters and claim the Earth after mankind nukes itself back to the Stone Age. The Apes in Rise however are just apes; They have suffered unduly certainly but primates have not and can not suffer the same exploitation that enslaved humans have in the past, and at the end of the day the smartest animal is incapable of understanding the world on the level a human. The fact that the film tries to do this anyway, particularly in structuring the primate shelter scenes like a prison film draws some parallels that it was better off leaving alone. Animal rights are important, but it’s not because animals are just like people, it’s because they aren’t. So in terms of theming and underlying commentary the original films are much stronger, although to be fair I’m judging one film based on five, so there’s still room for it to grow into its own thing.
The shift into ‘grounded’, ‘hard’ sci-fi also means that Rise has to find explanations for the biggest question for the concept: how exactly do the humans lose when they vastly outnumber and outgun apes in every way? The original films explain this by way of nuclear war and correct organization on the part of the apes, but nukes aren’t trendy anymore so Rises instead goes for a genetically engineered virus (insert tired corona meme here) that boosts the intelligence of the apes while simultaneously killing off people. On the surface it’s an okay replacement as it goes on you realize just how much of it is based on a series of coincidences and people doing stupid things for no reason. The main takeaway from the original Planet of the Apes was that audiences had to take things like nuclear weapons seriously, otherwise this is what could happen to them. Conversely, what one takes away from Rise is a serving of Jurassic Park-style ‘scientists are irresponsible and can’t be trusted’ with a touch of ‘you should let people with serious diseases die even if you have the means to help them’, which is a refrain I’ve gotten enough of already in the passing year.
In a lesser film that would be enough to give it the thumb’s down, but as I said the work that Andy Serkis and the writers put into Caesar makes for compelling drama, and once the story and the action ramps up with the introduction of the other apes Rise of the Planet of the Apes becomes downright entertaining. It gets the recommendation, but we’ll have to wait until next year to see if the sequels can say the same. Maybe they’ll do something with that spaceship they mention in a couple scenes? Who knows! Until then, make yourself a couple banana daiquiris this Halloween and have yourself a fun night.
