"OF THE (x2)" The Movie.

So I just got back from seeing "Rise OF THE Planet OF THE Apes", and I must say I'm a little bit disappointed.  This was supposed to be the movie that explained in fine detail the events that eventually led to the premise behind the "Planet OF THE Apes" films, and what I got out of it was a great big "Ehhhhhhh....What?"
           The movie itself was good in its own right I suppose, and I really think I would have enjoyed it a whole lot more had the title simply been "Rise of the Apes".  But alas, this is not the case, and thus, as a result, I am in my current state of severe disappointment.  Now, enough beating around the bush. let's talk about WHY I feel this way.
           The film's plot starts out relatively simple, or as simple as soft-science apocalypse-rising plots generally get anyway.  Basically, Will Rodman (James Franco) is a scientist dude who is working on creating a cure for Alzheimer's disease, partially because he wants to benefit all of humanity, but mostly because his aging father (Played here by John Lithgow) has Alzheimer's himself.  Of course, something goes terribly wrong with the cure, and one of the test chimps escapes and crashes into Will Rodman's investor's meeting quite literally, putting Will in a bit of a financial mess.  So of course the head of the organization (David Oyelowo) tells the scientists to take precaution and put down all the test apes and start from scratch.
          But oh ho ho, what's this?  It turns out that the ape who went ape-shit wasn't going ape-shit due to the medicine, but rather because she just gave birth to a child and was trying to protect it! Whoa!  That would make PERFECT SENSE if it weren't for the fact that the little baby ape was born in a constantly-surveillanced test chamber room and would have been spotted by one of the many competent employees with PhD's in Spotting-Super-Obvious-Monkey-Pregnancy at Genius Corporation.  Seriously, what's up scientist guys?  Too busy being idiots to notice a MONKEY GIVING BIRTH?  I say this of course, because when the baby Chimp is revealed to Willy Rodman by Mr. Genius, he acts like it's news to him that an ape was born in his facility.

MOVING ON..

          So anyway, William Rodman decides he doesn't have the heart to send the cute little mess of CGI baby ape to Banana Heaven, and so takes it home with him as a temporary solution.  But when he discovers that the medicine given to the ape's mother had affected its offspring via super-increased intelligence, Willy decides to keep the ape and study his mental development in the name of SCIENCE!

This is what the movie needed.  This is also what it didn't have.

           Oh yeah, and then for some unknown reason he names the ape Caesar of all things.  You know, like Caesar the Roman GENERAL?  Talk about some obvious foreshadowing right there.  What was Will supposedly thinking when he named him that anyway?  "This Ape is so smart and intelligent!  What should we name him?  Da Vinci?  Was he known for being smart?  Nah, it needs to be cooler than that.  Mozart?  Einstein?  Oh I know!! How about that Roman dictator!  Caesar!"  Nice thought process, genius.  What happened to naming monkeys cute things like "George" or "Bubbles"?
          Getting back on track here, Will and his father raise Caesar over the course of roughly 5 years, as he gets smarter and smarter.  Then Will uses his cute little ape friend to land a date with a vet, (whom never gets characterized all that much and thus we never give two craps about her EVER) who becomes his regular girlfriend for the rest of the film.  Speeding things along, Caesar goes ape-shit and beats up a guy, gets sent to monkey prison, (Otherwise known as an animal shelter, but for monkeys) and to make a long story short, begins an Ape Uprising with all the other apes there.
         So anyway, Caesar and his LEGION of apes all escape monkey prison, they tear shit up like nobody's business, and then decide to cross the Golden Gate Bridge.  This is where most of the awesome ape action takes place, including the awesome Gorilla-vs-Helicopter scene that was teased in literally EVERY trailer for this movie.  This was gonna be great, this was gonna be the start of an incredible Ape Revolution, the start of something much bigger, this was...THE END?? What??
          So right after the apes cross the Golden Gate bridge, it turns out that all they wanted to do was ESCAPE INTO A FOREST?  What happened to revolution against mankind?  What happened to the plans for world domination??  What the hell Caesar?  "Nope," says the movie to me, mocking me with its "wrapping-things-up-music" as the camera zoomed out and the screen came to a fade as I watched nothing but a monkey sitting on top of a tree. "this is all the monkey action you get, punk." 

He didn't like the movie either.

          Well SCREW YOU movie!  How does that explain anything??  So what? The apes just CROSSED A BRIDGE!  You expect me to believe that because they can cross a bridge, that they can take over the whole planet?  Well that's BULLSHI-
           "Wait!" says the movie, suddenly bringing up an extra scene just as the credit music starts, grabbing my attention. "There's more!"  So I sit and watch patiently, waiting for a damn good explanation for that shit ending, and what happens is a guy sneezing blood into a napkin at an airport, followed by a screen showing the globe and a bunch of yellow lines indicating where the dude's disease was going.  WHAT?
          Okay, so halfway through the film, a single line of dialog explains to us that the medicine (Injected via a virus)  has a different effect on humans than it does apes.  Where it makes apes smarter, it kills humans and makes them sneeze blood.  Okay....? Setting aside the fact that a virus having DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT effects on two species with EXTREMELY SIMILAR DNA seems pretty ridiculous in its own right, are we really expected to believe that a SINGLE VIRUS killed off nearly the ENTIRE HUMAN RACE, and the apes taking over was simply an incidental after-effect?  Well then why is it even Planet of the Apes then?  Answer me this movie: How is it an uprising if the apes just wait the virus out and then come out and take over everything that's left?  Sounds more like a sissy uprising to me!  That aside, if they are so happy living in the forest, why would they revert back to what they spent the whole movie escaping from?  I'm of course talking about CIVILIZATION.

YOU BASTARDS!  YOU BLEW UP THE MOVIE! DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!

So anyway, yeah. All in all, this movie pissed me off simply because it didn't deliver what was promised, A FREAKING REVOLUTION.  What it gave me was APES CROSSING A BRIDGE.

I give this movie ONE Man-in-the-Yellow-Hat-Being-Murdered-by-Curious-George out of FIVE.