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Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today.

Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films.

Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com/user/jsjkim, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ReThinkReviews. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

In the original 1968 film ‘Planet of the Apes’, astronauts land on a planet populated by talking, civilized apes, where the languageless humans are the ones treated like dumb animals. The new film ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ is essentially a spoiler for the original as well as this modernized origin story, since the planet in question is, naturally, earth.

But even though I’d seen the original film and knew that this one would eventually end with an ape victory, I rarely knew what would happen next. And the computer generated apes, which were created using performance capture technology, are so wonderfully expressive, soulful, and realistic, that ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ ends up being much better than I’d imagined it would be, as well as a revenge fantasy for animal rights activists.

The path to primate revolution starts out at a pharmaceutical company where scientist Will Rodman, played by James Franco, is working on a treatment that will help cure degenerative brain disorders like the Alzheimer’s eating away at his father, played by John Lithgow. Will is amazed to see that not only does his drug reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s, but also increases the intelligence of the chimps the drug is tested on. But when Will’s star chimp, Bright Eyes, goes berserk and has to be put down, Will is forced to abandon his research and adopt the baby chimp Bright Eyes left behind.

That baby, who’s named Caesar and is performed by actor Andy Serkis, eventually grows into an adolescent chimp who displays the heightened intelligence of his mother, inspiring Will to continue his research in secret and use his father as a guinea pig. And, like most teenagers, Caesar is beginning to wonder about who he is and his place in the world, and he’s troubled by the realization that he might be some sort of pet, or at most, a second-class citizen denied the rights of his furless, self-proclaimed masters.

After a run-in with a neighbor, Caesar is sent to a primate facility, where he’s stung by Will’s betrayal and is outraged by the prison-like conditions and the harsh treatment his new captors seem happy to inflict on Caesar and his fellow inmates. So Caesar hatches a plan to break himself and the other apes out of the facility, which becomes a call not just for revolution, but evolution when Caesar learns how to increase the intelligence of his compatriots.

While many see ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ as slightly silly summer fun, the film deserves a lot of credit for the risks it takes — namely, that over half the movie is centered around a character who can’t talk in what is, in many ways, a primate coming-of-age story. But Serkis is so talented and the performance capture technology is so good that Caesar’s emotions play clearly across his entire body, especially his wonderfully expressive face.

And the emotion we see most often on Caesar’s face is not anger, but a growing indignation and outrage at the way humans treat those they deem lesser than them. For Caesar, human cruelty invalidates any claim of moral or intellectual superiority, a sentiment many humans would agree with. And what’s amazing is that even though the culmination of Caesar’s revolution will eventually lead to a species demotion for humans, you’ll find yourself rooting for Caesar and his scrappy band of primates as they fight for their freedom through the streets of San Francisco.

Maybe that’s an acknowledgment that after mankind’s shabby treatment of the environment and our fellow animals, a little cinematic payback is way overdue.

‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ is rated PG-13 and opens today.