My Year with Movies

Morgan Spurlock exploded onto the scene with this amazing documentary about the dangers of the American diet. The movie that made McDonalds change it’s menu. A must see movie.

Morgan Spurlock’s second dock is an interesting examination of the feelings towards America from the Middle East. Thought provoking stuff.

Morgan Spurlock’s new documentary about product placement in movies is a fun and informative film. Not as powerful as Super Size Me but really well done all the same.

Check out the interview I did with Mr. Spurlock at http://geekactually.com/2011/08/03/film-actually-presents-the-league-exclusive-morgan-spurlock-interview/

I’m sure that some studio executive thought that putting Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell together in an action/comedy buddy movie was a good idea, it wasn’t. Humour is flat and the action is uninspired. Stallone isn’t funny and Kurt Russell (who I like a lot) is forced.

High camp Sylvester Stallone mountain climbing action film. Director Renny Harlin is much better suited to this than his more recent 5 Days of War. Dumb, stupid fun.

A truly unfunny film that tries, unsuccessfully, to make Danny McBride a leading man. Avoid.

Although at first glance this looks like a stand alone, full reboot of the classic “Planet of the Apes” series of films, on closer inspection there are a lot of little hints that this is actually pretty closely related to the original 1968 film starring Charlton Heston. Forget the Tim Burton reboot in 2001, this film is not related to that at all.

Set in the present day, scientist Will Rodman (James Franco) is experimenting on chimps, trying to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease to save his father (John Lithgow). His new drug shows amazing results healing the brain and as a side effect it seems to be boosting the intelligence of the apes. After a lab mishap, his chimps are destroyed except for one newborn who has inherited the effects of the drug from his mother. Rodman takes the chimp named Caesar home and continues to study him while he raises him. When Caesar is taken from Rodman and sent to an ape shelter, he uses his intelligence to help organise the other apes and the revolution begins.

The film is heavily influenced by the 1972 film “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes” (part 4 in the original series) but handled in much more realistic way. Gone is the camp production design, rubber masks and over the top, subtle as a brick parallels to slavery. Here we have nuanced performances and a very realistic chain of events that make you buy into the sci-fi concepts. Director Rupert Wyatt (“The Escapist”) obviously believed, to his credit, that these apes and their performances are as important as the human characters. You feel the raw emotion from these apes, you feel their frustration, you feel their anger.

Credit must also be given to Peter Jackson’s WETA Digital who have created their most impressive CG creatures to date. That is a big statement considering they are the same company that brought us “The Lord of the Rings”, “King Kong”, “Avatar” and the soon to be released “The Adventures of Tintin”. Even though Caesar and the rest of the apes are CG creations, they have real personalities. Using the latest in Motion Capture (Mo-Cap) technology WETA has truly brought living creatures to life on the screen. Using special mobile Mo-Cap equipment, WETA was able to capture veteran Mo-Cap actor Andy Serkis’ (who supplies an amazing performance for Caesar) performance as he actually interacted with the live actors on set, this allows for much more realistic interaction between actor and effect.

Everything works in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”, simple as that. I enjoyed the film very much and I recommend it as a great adventure film that also asks deeper questions about man meddling with nature and our treatment of what we deem as lesser creatures. This is highly recommended viewing and I really hope that they continue the series into a reboot of the original 1968 film. Yes, I actually said I wanted to see a reboot, that is how good this film is.

Originally published on Geek Actually http://geekactually.com/2011/08/04/review-rise-of-the-planet-of-the-apes/

Francis Ford Coppola’s war masterpiece has been released on Blu-Ray… buy it and watch it now! That is all I can say, it is an amazing film and looks terrific in HD.

Second viewing, had to a) see it again and b) had to take my family. Love this film. See the older post for details.

I needed sleep.