Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Promotional poster
Directed by	Rupert Wyatt
Written by	Rick Jaffa Amanda Silver
Produced by	Peter Chernin Dylan Clark Rick Jaffa Amanda Silver
Starring	James Franco Freida Pinto John Lithgow Brian Cox Tom Felton Andy Serkis
Cinematography	Andrew Lesnie
Edited by	Conrad Buff Mark Goldblatt
Music by	Patrick Doyle
Production companies	20th Century Fox Dune Entertainment Chernin Entertainment
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	August 5, 2011 (2011-08-05)
Running time	105 minutes
Country	Template:Film US
Language	English
Budget	$93 million
Box office	$479,768,594

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (previously titled Rise of the Apes) is a 2011 American epic science fiction drama film directed by Rupert Wyatt, starring James Franco and Andy Serkis. It is a reboot of the Planet of the Apes series. It is intended to act as a foundation with its own origin story for a new film series. Its premise is similar to the fourth film in the original series, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972), but it is not a direct remake in that it does not fit into that series' continuity. It was released in the United States, Canada, and India on August 5, 2011. The film received positive reviews and became a box office success.

Plot

Three chimpanzees are captured in an African jungle from their troop by poachers and shipped to San Francisco. Will Rodman (James Franco) is a scientist at pharmaceutical company Gen-Sys who has been trying to develop a cure for Alzheimer's disease by testing a genetically engineered gene therapy on 12 chimps. The drug mutates the chimpanzees, giving them a human level of intelligence. The most successful subject is a female chimp named Bright Eyes (Terry Notary) goes on a rampage because she believes her baby, to whom she secretly gave birth, is threatened; she is killed while disrupting the board meeting where Will is presenting the cure. Will's boss Steven Jacobs (David Oyelowo) orders chimp handler Robert Franklin (Tyler Labine) to put all the test chimpanzees down. Franklin cannot bring himself to kill the baby chimp and instead gives him to Will.

Will's father Charles (John Lithgow), who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, names him Caesar (Andy Serkis) and Will raises him in his house. Caesar has genetically inherited his mother's high intelligence and learns and develops quickly. After three years, Caesar has outgrown his surroundings. One day, after frightening their neighbor Hunsiker's children and earning a cut on his leg in the process, Will takes Caesar to the San Francisco Zoo where primatologist Caroline Aranha (Freida Pinto) treats his injuries and is impressed by how Will has taught Caesar to communicate through sign language. When she suggests that Caesar needs more open space, Will begins to frequently take Caesar to the redwood forest at Muir Woods National Monument, but after an encounter with a family's German shepherd, his intelligence begins to sour him to his status as a human "pet".

Five years later, Will and Caroline have begun a relationship. When Caesar questions his identity, Will takes him and Caroline outside of Gen-Sys and tells Caesar that his mother and eleven others chimps were tested on and that the reason for Caesar's "human-like" intelligence was that he had inherited the drug while still in the womb. Caroline then tries to convince Will that what he had tampered with could have grave consequences. Caesar begins to realize his biological identity and view himself as different from his human family.

A desperate Will tests a sample of his cure on his father. At first, his father improves, but eventually his immune system fights off the virus and his dementia returns. A confused Charles attempts to drive Hunsiker's car, thinking it is his own, and damages it, causing Hunsiker (David Hewlett) to lose his temper. As Hunsiker argues threateningly with Charles, the onlooking Caesar attacks him. Caesar is forcibly removed from Will's house and held in the San Bruno Primate Sanctuary run by John Landon (Brian Cox), where the apes are treated cruelly by the chief guard, Landon's son Dodge (Tom Felton). Caesar is treated poorly by both the staff and, initially, the other apes. When Caesar and the other apes are let out into the play enclosure he is then attacked and chased by a gray hairless chimpanzee named Rocket, after the fight Dodge shoots the chimp with a dart gun along with Caesar. However, Caesar also meets Maurice (Karin Konoval), a circus orangutan who knows sign language and can thereby communicate with Caesar. When Dodge brings unauthorized visitors into the facility, one of them gets too close to Caesar's cage and is grabbed by Caesar, who steals a pocket knife which he uses to unlock and escape from his cell. Caesar then frees a gorilla named Buck (Richard Ridings), kept in solitary confinement. With his grateful assistance, Caesar gains dominance over the other apes by beating Rocket (Notary), the former dominate male chimp at the sanctury, who was the chimpanzee that had attacked Caesar.

Meanwhile, Will creates a more powerful form of the virus to resume treating his father, and an excited Jacobs clears its testing on chimpanzees. Results from treating a bonobo named Koba (Christopher Gordon) reveal that it strengthens the intelligence of the apes even further. However, unbeknownst to the scientists, it is fatal to humans. Franklin is exposed to the new virus and begins sneezing blood. Attempting to contact Will at his home, he accidentally sneezes blood on Hunsiker, and is later discovered dead in his apartment. Will attempts to warn Jacobs against further testing but when Jacobs refuses, Will quits his job with Jacobs noting that his resignation will not affect the experimentation process.

After Charles' death, a determined Will bribes the elder Landon into releasing Caesar into his custody; to his shock and dismay, Caesar refuses to leave with him. Later, Caesar escapes from the ape facility on his own and returns to Will's house, where he steals canisters of the new virus and releases it throughout the cage area, enhancing the intelligence of all his fellow apes. It is also announced at this time through a television broadcast that a manned shuttle 'Icarus' has entered the Mars atmosphere and that enough water was discovered on the planet to support life. Later the apes put into motion their escape plan and when Dodge attempts to intervene, Caesar easily beats him down, and displays the ability to talk, shocking Dodge and the other apes. As Dodge tries to attack them, Caesar electrocutes and inadvertently kills him by spraying him with a hose as he holds his electric stun. (In contrasting behavior, Caesar halts the apes from beating a more sympathetic guard and leads him to the safety of a cage.) The liberated apes storm the city and release the remaining apes from Gen-Sys, as well as the entire ape population from a zoo. (There is also a scene which shows a "Lost In Space?" newspaper headline, which suggests that Icarus is the ship which travels through time in the original 'Planet of the Apes.')

The apes then force their way past a CHP blockade on the Golden Gate Bridge, utilizing its thick mist as a visual shield. Caesar specifically orders his apes to refrain from killing disarmed police. However, Jacobs arrives in a helicopter from which a door gunner begins shooting the apes, specifically targeting Caesar at Jacobs' behest. The orangutans are led by Maurice, some of the chimps on the ground by Rocket, the gorillas are led by Buck, and most of the chimps on the rails by Koba. Buck saves Caesar from getting shot, and sacrifices himself by leaping onto the helicopter, which crashes onto the bridge, killing everyone inside except Jacobs and leaving the helicopter at the very edge of the bridge. Jacobs begs for Caesar's help, his hand reached out (in a gesture mirroring the natural primate sign for permission) but he walks away, permitting Koba to push the helicopter into the bay below. The apes escape into the redwood forest. Will arrives in a stolen police car and is attacked by Koba, but Caesar stops him. Will warns Caesar that in the forest humans will hunt them down, but that he can protect him if he returns home. Caesar, now capable of basic speech, gently tells him that he is home along with his fellow apes. The ending scene shows the apes Caesar, Rocket, Maurice, and others standing upright, then climbing to the top of the redwood trees, looking over the San Francisco bay.

In the post-credit sequence, Hunsiker, an airline pilot, arrives at work infected by the virus. The scene zooms onto a filled flight-status display board emphasizing New York, then fades into a stylized flight map animated with blooming trajectories throughout the world, implying the spread of a global ALZ-113 pandemic and reduction in the human population that would allow for the rise of the apes.

Cast

• James Franco as Dr. Will Rodman, a scientist who is trying to cure his father's Alzheimer's Disease by testing it on chimps. He is a father figure to Caesar. James Franco was cast after talks with Tobey Maguire broke down.
• Andy Serkis as Caesar, a highly intelligent chimpanzee who has inherited the ALZ-112 from his mother while they were testing her, and is eventually brought up by Will.
• John Lithgow as Charles Rodman, Will's Alzheimer's infected father who has improved after Will gave him the ALZ-112 and has grown a strong bond with Caesar.
• Freida Pinto as Caroline Aranha, a primatologist who starts a relationship with Will and has grown attached to Caesar for five years.
• David Oyelowo as Steven Jacobs, Will's greedy boss.
• Brian Cox as John Landon, Dodge's father, who is a cool-headed businessman.
• Tom Felton as Dodge Landon, John's sadistic son who works as the head guard at the facility.
• Chelah Horsdal as Irena, a nurse who is looking after Charles.
• Tyler Labine as Robert Franklin, a chimp handler at Gen-sys, and also gets infected with the ALZ-113.
• David Hewlett as Hunsiker, Will's hot headed neighbor, who is later infected with the ALZ-113, and then starts a global pandemic.
• Jamie Harris as Rodney, a guard who is kinder to the apes at the sanctuary.
• Karin Konoval as Maurice and Personal at Police Station. Maurice is a Bornean orangutan who had retired from the circus and knows sign language and becomes Caesar's best friend.
• Richard Ridings as Buck, an aggressive western lowland gorilla who pledges his allegiance to Caesar after he is freed by him.
• Christopher Gordon as Koba, a scar-faced bonobo who has a grudge against humans.
• Terry Notary as Rocket and Bright Eyes. Rocket is a dominant chimp at the ape sanctuary, until Caesar overthrows him, then he becomes a loyal follower of Caesar. Bright Eyes is Caesar's mother who was captured in Africa and was experimented on and later killed protecting her child.

Production

In a segment of a video blog post, director Rupert Wyatt commented on the originality of the plot: "This is part of the mythology and it should be seen as that. It's not a continuation of the other films; it's an original story. It does satisfy the people who enjoy those films. The point of this film is to achieve that and to bring that fan base into this film exactly like Batman Begins."

In an interview in 2009, Wyatt said, "We've incorporated elements from Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, in terms of how the apes begin to revolt, but this is primarily a prequel to the 1968 film.... Caesar is a revolutionary figure who will be talked about by his fellow apes for centuries.... This is just the first step in the evolution of the apes, and there's a lot more stories to tell after this. I imagine the next film will be about the all-out war between the apes and humans."

Filming began in July 2010 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Filming also headed to San Francisco, California, and around Oahu, Hawaii.

Visual effects

Unlike all prior entries in the Apes franchise (which used actors in make-up), the apes were created digitally by Weta Digital using performance capture technology. New advances in the technology allowed the use of performance capture in an exterior environment, affording the film-makers the freedom to shoot much of the film on location with multiple performers, as opposed to the confines of a performance capture soundstage.

Script

The screenplay, from an original idea by and written by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, contains several tributes to specific scenes, characters, and cast & crew from the previous Apes film series.

Music

The score for the film was composed by Patrick Doyle and performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony. The vocals were recorded at 20th Century Fox by an experienced team of vocalists including legendary African drummer Ayo Adeyemi and talented hip-hop performing artist Louis King.

Reception

Critical response

Reviews for Rise of the Planet of the Apes have been very positive, with review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reporting an 82% "Certified Fresh" rating, and an average rating of 7.1/10, based on 227 reviews. The site's summarized consensus is: "Led by Rupert Wyatt's stylish direction, some impressive special effects, and a mesmerizing performance by Andy Serkis, Rise of the Planet of the Apes breathes unlikely new life into a long-running franchise." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, reports a score of 68 based on 39 reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and praised the role of Caesar and Andy Serkis by stating it was a "wonderfully executed character" and "one never knows exactly where the human ends and the effects begin, but Serkis and/or Caesar gives the best performance in the movie."

Box office

Rise of the Planet of the Apes made its debut in the United States and Canada on roughly 5,400 screens within 3,648 theaters. It grossed $19,534,699 on opening day and $54,806,191 in its entire opening weekend, making it #1 for that weekend as well as the fourth highest-grossing August opening ever. The film held on to the #1 spot in its second weekend, dropping 49.2%, and grossing $27,832,307. Rise of the Planet of the Apes crossed the $150 million mark in the United States and Canada on its 26th day of release. Entertainment Weekly said that this was quite an accomplishment for the film since the month of August is a difficult time for films to make money.

As of November 17, 2011, the film has grossed $176,368,594 in the U.S.A and Canada as well as $303,400,000 internationally, for a total of $479,768,594 worldwide.

Sequels

Regarding the story setting up possible sequels, Wyatt commented: "I think we’re ending with certain questions, which is quite exciting. To me, I can think of all sorts of sequels to this film, but this is just the beginning." Screenwriter and producer Rick Jaffa also stated that Rise of the Planet of the Apes would feature several clues as to future sequels: "I hope that we’re building a platform for future films. We’re trying to plant a lot of the seeds for a lot of the things you are talking about in terms of the different apes and so forth."

The film introduced the female ape Cordelia and the Mars mission ship 'Icarus', both hinting that a sequel would include the crew of Icarus returning to Earth to encounter the new society built by Caesar, Cordelia and the other apes.

According to Rick Jaffa, a version of the spaceship from the 1968 Planet of the Apes is featured under the name Icarus in the film as a deliberate hint to a possible sequel. Andy Serkis has confirmed that there will be a sequel for the film and that he will be reprising his role as Caesar.

Home media

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is scheduled to be released on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital Copy on December 13, 2011.

External links

• Official website
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes at IMDb
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes at AllMovie
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes at Rotten Tomatoes
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes at Box Office Mojo
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes at the Planet of the Apes Wiki