Movie Thoughts: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

• Released: July 28, 2011
  
• Directed by: Rupert Wyatt
• Running time: 1h 45min
• Rating 4/5

Synopsis

A hyperintelligent chimpanzee named Caesar manages to unite all apekind in a revolution against man.

My Thoughts

I always avoided these movies because until recently I really disliked apes and monkeys. I never really had a good reason for it, something about them just kinda always freaked me out when I was younger. But in recent years I've grown more of an appreciation for these animals, even a bit of a fascination, though I don't think they'll ever be among my favorite animals. 

So I finally watched this movie in anticipation of Kingdom of the Planet of the apes releasing and yeah, I gotta admit I missed out here. This is overall a rather good movie with some high stakes and genuine emotional moments. As a fan of xenofiction I honestly should've checked this out way sooner.

Some of the visual effects haven't aged as well, but for the time this came out it was certainly still very impressive-looking. The movie also has some moments that really gave me chills, such as when Caesar finally finds his voice or causes the ape escape of the facility.

My main gripe in this movie though is how Caesar never really feels like he really earns the leader role. Sure, he does some things that might make him more privileged as an ape, but as the climax approaches, Caesar just kinda automatically becomes the ape's leader. And sure, he's an intelligent ape and the one who caused all the other apes to mentally evolve, but I don't know, he just doesn't feel that leader-like at this point in the story yet to me. That doesn't really happen until movies two and three, at least to me. Caesar is a fine character and I do like him, I just don't think his title as leader feels completely earned yet by the ending of this movie. At least not completely.

Also this movie has a bit of a sexism problem if you ask me, something the two sequels also have. There are barely any female characters in this movie. There's like, Caesar's mother (who dies) and Cornelia, who is pretty much a non-character. The most major female character here is Will's girlfriend, but she's not very major and doesn't do a whole lot. A few more female characters with more agency would've been nice.

Overall I did still greatly enjoy this movie though. It's thrilling, it's exciting, and it's heartfelt when it needs to be. I know for a fact that this is the start to a pretty great trilogy (having already seen Dawn and War).