In the pack of summer blockbusters, some stand out and others fade away in the memory, shoved unceremoniously into the mental filing cabinet under “waste of ten dollars.” Rise of the Planet of the Apes isn’t necessarily a waste of money. It has some things going for it – eye-catching special effects and good source material, for example. But as a revolutionary summer blockbuster experience, Apes doesn’t rise to the occasion (though it seems to think it does).
Fist in the air for nothing: The shallow non-politics of Rise of the Planet of the Apes **1/2
by Todd Kushigemachi
In perhaps the worst moment of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Tom Felton’s abusive primate facility assistant yells at super-chimp Caesar, “Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!” Uncharacteristically cheesy for this prequel, the cheap reference to the 1968 original is the only thing about Rise of the Planet of the Apes that indicates its creators have ever seen a movie.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes fails on unevolved execution of a great premise **
by Kayleigh Roberts
I have a predisposition to love action movies. If it’s released in the summer and things are exploding, I’m usually going to walk away fairly satisfied. And that’s pretty much how I left Rise of the Planet of the Apes – fairly satisfied. As prequels go, the concept is solid. Planet of the Apes is one of the more interesting concepts sci-fi has seen and why not take a look at how it happened?
