The film works.

I almost want to stop there.

The thing is, the film is not what you are probably expecting from the ads. It has action – lots of it – but it’s not an action movie. It has apes becoming as intelligent or more intelligent in some cases than humans, but it’s not that movie either.

Really, the movie is a social drama that could practically have been written by John Osborne or Robert Bolt. In a weird way, it’s closer to The Help than like Transformers on the summer spectrum.

It’s not really a reboot or a rethink on the material. But it is a film of this time, not the late 60s when the classic Apes was conceived. In the original, Charlton Heston stood in for black people in the civil rights movement. The Apes – aka Us – were so involved in maintaining the status quo that only the high minded ever even considered the discrimination. The issue was forced when a pre-devolution human arrives in their world. We should know better than to consider anyone a second class life form.

Here, we are still Us. The Apes are still limited. And thus starts a complex journey that leaves the audience rooting for its own demise.

The achievement of drawing the audience in to rooting for a species that is not our species – with some broad caricatures at times, but mostly with normal humans doing not-always-good things – is remarkable. There is a coda, about 60 seconds into credits, that audiences will love… against all human logic. But we are that connected to the movie, outside of our own heads. Which is great.

Franco is fine. Frieda Pinto’s only time off of being The Girl is when she turns into Basilina Exposition for a moment here or there. I didn’t know who played Franco’s dad, so I won’t tell you. But good. Brian Cox doesn’t get to do much. Tom Felton makes a good asshole. David Oyelowo looks good in a suit.

But this is really Andy Serkis’ movie. More so than as Kong or Gollum, he is doing a full pantomime performance… a much wider range of emotions and concepts to grasp through his digital eyes than Kong attempted. And it is a triumph for the digital artists who are well onto the right side of the suspension of disbelief line. Yes, you may be conscious that you are looking at digital animals at times. But more intellectually than emotionally. And with movies, that’s what matters.

They are also very smart about context in this film. They don’t overreach and yet the consequences of individual actions are still felt and feel like they will reverberate widely. Spartacus wasn’t about all the slaves… but it was. Same idea here.

It’s not the best movie of the season for me… but it’s definitely in the top third. And best of all – for me, if not for opening weekend – it came as a complete surprise. That tends to get a good film overrated. And it might here. But it’s a very good genre film. Very good indeed.

Livestream archive of the interview after the jump….

Wed, 2:58p – That would be an interesting idea… but ill-timed. Would be much more interesting with footage, which they could have after the trailer ran.

I like the idea of experimenting with this kind of thing, but the breathlessness over getting the trailer seen seems a bit much. it’s gonna be on American Idol… it’s gonna be seen by everyone in the core audience for the film on ITunes, YouTube, and elsewhere… and if it’s a great trailer, it will get 4-quadrant word of mouth and views.

But nice seeing Joe Letteri without a beard. Funny how when he was dealing with the virtually hairless Na’vi, he had a beard and now, it’s monkeys, and smooth Joe.
(more…)

The WETA apes for Rise of The Planet of the Apes look like… uh… apes… with human thought processes.

(Note: It occurs to me that this might be taken as a James Franco slam. It’s not. He stars in the movie. Though I have to say, the murky slammy “he and the monkey have something in common” thing is actually kind of funny to me… but people tend to take take gray and make it b+W on the web… in other words, no sense of humor, so I am being clear. I think Franco is highly intelligent and I admire his ambition to taste all the flavors of life.

God, I hate the web some days.)