Rise of the Planet of the Apes

My wife and I went to see this movie last night. It was a good movie. I must admit based on the commercials and my own impressions from the previous movies it was not exactly what I expected.

First it should be said that one does not need to be familiar with the Planet of the Apes franchise to appreciate or enjoy the movie. With the knowledge of previous films one might get a few of the references that come in the newest movie that nod to the previous.

In this movie we see Will Rodman played by James Franco as a scientist working on a cure for Alzheimer's disease. His drug shows promise with apes but just as a demonstration is about to be made of the progress of the apes the test case escapes and attacks humans. She and all the other monkeys that have been given the drug are put down but the lab worker charged with putting the apes down balks at doing so to a baby they were unaware of. The mother ape in giving birth had passed the effects of the drug onto the baby. When Rodman brings the baby home and raises him, naming him Caesar he realizes that with no Alzheimer's to cure the medicine passed from his Mom has given Caesar incredible cognitive abilities. What this leads to becomes the movie's main theme.

Franco is good in the role, perhaps the most interesting performance is that of John Lithgow as Will's Dad who has alzheimers.

This is a good movie, one with more story than I anticpated and might well be the launch of an all new franchise of movies.