Watched on Friday. Honestly, I was getting tired of the same formulaic action movies. "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" seemed to have a heart of its own after watching a few TV spots, clips and of course the trailer releases which I was *very* careful of. When the first few reviews came in RT, it was 6 fresh and 1 rotten. The 4-minute clip was what I needed and that's when I decided to watch it.

NO SPOILERS. Enjoy.

The Story - 4/5
I did watch the Mark Whalberg-starred "Planet of the Apes" and I recall it was just a typical action flick with talking chimps. When I read about what this movie was doing, I was impressed. I didn't see it as a "reboot" but as a "spiritual successor" to anything related to "Planet of the Apes" universe. It takes the very core element and then creates a brand new, and totally realistic approach. If Christopher Nolan = real-world based Batman universe, then this is real-world based PotA universe. I honestly admit this is the best anything-related to PotA ever. In recent times, Hollywood has been on the hunt for reboots and new beginnings, and I will say this - "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" is the way to do it. The plot in the movie has such a intricate approach regardless whether totally original or not.

The Pace - 5/5
105 minutes? Kidding me. It felt like 1 hour.    It had such a breathtaking pace and never one moment will you be able to take your eyes off the screen. I know because I did not. Brilliantly edited and strung together scene to scene, from the apes to the father-son moments to the mighty escape. It took two editors to edit this movie and the pace couldn't possibly be faulted here.

The Acting Performances - 5/5
Academy Award nominee James Franco along with Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Box, Tom Felton and Andy Serkis. This the second film I've seen of James Franco this year ("127 Hours" was the other). I have to give a very special credit to Andy Serkis. After his stunning 'virtual' performance in LOTR and then "King Kong", he is now back in mo-cap to deliver yet another brilliant performance as Caesar. Simply put, Andy Serkis is quite possibly the most experienced actor in a mo-cap suit ever to grace the screen. I loved all the characters, and also loved the fact that they were somewhat 'limited' allowing the plot to take hold of these characters even better. I did not find much chemistry between Will and Caroline but it didn't matter. It works for the movies' story purpose. Emotional scenes aplenty, thanks to both on-screen live actors and virtual actor(s).

The Music - 4/5
It works well for the movie. Kicks in at appropriate moments and completely absent during tense/hold-on-to-your seat moments. Loved it though I can't really remember a particular piece of music. Was there even a "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" theme? Again, it just worked well and never once came in the way of the movie in any distracting or annoying way. Academy Award nominee Patrick Doyle did the music and he was responsible for "Thor" and will be for next year's PIXAR "Brave".

The Ending - 5/5
Monstrously great. I loved it to bits. It is as fulfilling as say "District 9". It leaves you with a genuinely sad feeling and with a giant question mark. Since I am not going to spoil anything, let's just say when that moment occurred with Will, my jaw dropped and my mind was like OMG. I could hear the whole cinema going ??? and silence fell.  They saved the best for the last and never, ever thought of using it throughout the movie. Respect, respect!  Now that, is how you do it. Congratulations. It took a small page out of the PotA universe everyone recognized. The final action sequences had me feeling so excited in anticipation that it felt like the moment the Na'vi were going to launch their full front assault on the RDA units in "Avatar". It was simply stunning. The intelligent control by Caesar amazed me too. It was just pure excitement.

FINAL VERDICT

All in all, the movie gelled together tremendously well and the sheer number of gripping, tense and emotional moments in the movie makes it a thoroughly satisfying movie. Priceless.

9/10

Stunningly and intelligently written, a marvel in the visual effects department (a nominee?) and emotionally charged all at a breathtaking pace. You will not get enough of this.


This and "Deathly Hallows Part 2" stack up as the best movies I've seen this year. It finally gives me a hope that a great movie trailer CAN result in an ever greater movie than expected.

Jurassic Park is gonna re-release in 3D - May 2013 for the 20th Anniversary!  

the new poster :

The UN has created a task force to exterminate the dinosaurs [...] A bad-ass heavily-armed United Nations task force versus the dinosaurs. Bring it on! But then the script throws its first major curve ball, introducing Nick Harris, an unemployed soldier of fortune. Nick's the lead in the movie. Not Alan Grant. Not Ian Malcolm. Despite all the rumors to the contrary, those characters are not back for this film [...] Hammond's got a big idea: breed some new dinosaurs that can't reproduce and introduce them into the wild population. A Judas strain that will kill off the dinosaurs within one generation. Easy enough, except the UN has outlawed any breeding of new dinosaurs by anyone and they've prohibited the sale, mining, or possession of amber worldwide. Hammond's got scientists ready and waiting to go, but he needs genetic material to work with.

When Nick wakes up, he's in the tower of a medieval castle in the Alps. Seriously. That's the precise moment when the entire enterprise goes so over-the-top loony that you'll either go along with it for the entire insane ride or reject it roundly as a big bag of ludicrous. Nick is introduced to Adrien Joyce, the major domo henchman of Baron von Drax, CEO of the Grendel Corporation. Joyce isn't a moustache-twirling bad guy bent on torturing Nick into revealing where he hid the shaving cream can. Instead, he offers Nick a job, and in order to explain the job to him, he has to take him on a tour of the entire castle, which turns out to be a fairly sophisticated genetics lab where Grendel Corporation has been breeding some dinosaurs of their own design, cross-breeds that never existed in any era of nature with all sorts of custom modifications [...]

Nick is put in charge of training these five dinosaurs, X1 through X5, and the first thing he does is name them. "Any soldier worth his pay has a name to answer to, not a number," he says. So we are introduced to Achilles, Hector, Perseus, Orestes, and Spartacus, each of them a specially created deinonychus, which is sort of like a miniature T-rex. They have super-sensitive smell and hearing, incredible strength and speed and pack-hunting instincts, and they have modified forelegs, lengthened and topped with more dextrous fingers, as well as dog DNA for increased obedience and human DNA so they can solve problems well. All of this is topped off with a drug-regulating implant that can dose them with adrenaline or serotonin as the situation demands.