I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Sadly Over-hyped

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

After a couple of failed planet of the apes sequels,and the awful Tim Berton remake,we finally got the apes movie that we all been waiting for. Rupert Wyatt did great job directing this film,with a help from a very talented crew,and amazing cast they all gave us a fantastic first chapter of an epic trilogy,this movie was just the beginning.In this film we see the story of Caesar played by and Andy Serkis a smart apes that was raised by Dr. William played by James Franco,and his journey to discover his true identity,and raise and fight to protect his kind.

I don't care if you're considering this film because you like apes or because you like apes or even because you like apes, you will love this film because, well, APES! Spoiler: This movie is about apes. It has good action, outstanding FX, delicious eye candy AND shocking humor. This is easily better than Dawn or War and blows that other reboot out of the water. Rise is a fantastic movie! If it weren't for the sequels, this would be a yearly watch for me. Because I have to watch all or none, I can only re-watch this every 2 - 3 years.

Although there was plenty of room for improvement here, there were a lot of things that I thought this movie did well. When I first saw the trailers back in 2011, it looked to me like the apes were the enemy that was trying to take over the world like in an alien invasion movie. However, I was pleasantly surprised upon finally seeing it this past summer to find that this is not at all an action driven movie. The trailers make it out to be an action movie, but in truth there is only one action scene at the climax. However, there is plenty to keep it interesting and exciting throughout the rest of the movie.The science/medicine/tech corporation that Will worked for felt a little bit standard, much like Oscorp from the Spiderman movies. However, the company was not looking to make any kind of military technology, which is seen in a lot of action movies. Instead, the writers decided to make the serum that makes Caesar smarter a drug that is intended to cure Alzheimers, which I think was a good choice. It made the entire movie feel more real and allowed it to put some more focus on some of the societal issues that come up in it. There is an active search for a cure to Alzheimers, and it is almost a certainty that pharmaceutical companies would test out their cure on animals before humans. Later, when Caesar gives all of the apes the serum, it makes sense that the first thing the apes would think about with their more intelligent minds would be the oppressive circumstances they are in. Even though animal cruelty was not a major theme of the movie, it was at least presented in a way that gave it more attention and made viewers more likely to think about how we treat animals than say the way the Avengers dealt with the Tessaract. The climatic battle also has more weight because the apes are not the aggressors. Rather they are simply trying to escape and live on their own; the fighting only ensues when the police try to stop them. Whether the serum would actually have such an extensive impact on chimps as it does in the movie is unlikely, but choosing to have the drug make the apes smarter rather than more aggressive like some movies might have done was a good choice in my opinion.I also really liked the way that the movie used their graphics and mo-cap when dealing with the apes. Like most computer graphics today, it did not make the apes look like real apes, but it at least looked clean enough that it wasn't distracting. But I especially liked the way that Caesar and the other apes were written, directed, and acted. Most of the times when intelligent animals are featured in movies, they either talk, or make incredibly annoying gestures and noises to make up for not being able to speak (see Curious George, Sven from Frozen, the chicken in Moana, the horses in Mulan and Tangled and El Dorado). Here, Caesar was able to communicate through sign, which is a much more realistic and eloquent way of making him a human character to the audience. Instead of trying to make Caesar overly cute or overly aggressive, they just made him seem more human. This made the moment when he finally speaks so much more powerful, at least for me.There were a few things that I disliked about it. Several shots that were used at the beginning and end of scenes felt rather clichéd and overused, especially as the pace of the movie picked up. Steven Jacobs, the head of the company, felt like kind of a caricature and I got a little annoyed by the way he was written. Last and worst was the young zookeeper Dodge Landon, who felt heinously unrealistic. He's a character that the audience is meant to hate, but I hated him even more because he just felt like a copy of a stereotypical punk, especially in the scene when he brings his friends in to see the apes.On the whole, I liked it and want to see the next two. It's by no means the perfect sci-fi movie, but sci-fi movies should strive to be more like this one. Overall Rating: 7.8/10.

Back in 2011 I remember when I saw the teaser for this movie in the theater, I actually got a bit excited, the original Planet of the Apes movie from 1968 was a sci-fi master piece and while the 2001 reboot was disappointing to say the least, the cast and filmmakers behind this project gave me enough confidence to be a bit excited for it. The movie was definitely a pleasant surprise, something this movie did right was going back to the more though provoking ideas that made the franchise famous to begin with, instead of focusing on the action, this movie has a lot of themes of humans using science to play god and the consequences that come with that, and is all handled really well. Andy Serkis delivered an amazing performance, definitely one of the best in his entire career, James Franco and Freida Pinto also did a good job, though I feel the script didn't gave them much to be as memorable as Caesar. Also I feel that Rupert Wyatt's directing in this movie is a bit underrated, true, it isn't as stunning as Reeves' directing in the next two films, but Wyatt did an excellent job giving this movie a slick and beautiful look. The third act, is also just great, that is where the action starts and is done really well and is a good glimpse of what is to come later in the franchise. This is both a reboot and a prequel done right and it has become one of the greatest trilogies of all time and people should always give credit to the one that started it all.