Rating of
2/4
The Story and CGI Disappoint
Alex - wrote on 08/13/11
Disappointing for me. I was quite pleased with the Marky Mark version of the remake. It was interesting and had some good performances. Also, the science behind it made sense to me I liked some of the action scenes. Sure it had some crappy parts (the kid ridding the horse was absolutely ridiculous) and the original far surpasses.
When I heard about this movie, I was skeptical. It reminded me of what they were trying to do with Predator and many other classic sci fi's. Let classics be classics...and if you are going to redo them, redo them right (almost king kong).
The Good: James Franco, John Lithgow, and Andy Serkis' performances. Really good. Franco is a good actor and I respect him more and more by the roles he chooses. Another good part was the overall music. Not quite as good as Danny Elfman but still really helped the mediocre story and the cheese of the film.
The Bad: The story was not that good. It felt very cliche (including many lines) and was a "good scientist vs bad investor story" that we have seen from everything from Hollowman to The fountain (the later was a much better film). The direction was not horrible but it wasn't good either. The story was a bit long and a bit too light in the beginning.
The Ugly: The CGI! Weta Digital created these apes. I much prefer both the original and the 2001 film's apes to this crap. It looked unfinished and cheap. The best rendered character was a giant gorilla that was clearly reused from King Kong (it was the same Ape I tell you!). This is the only bad piece of rendering I have seen Weta do. Another horrible thing about this movie was the way they tried to contain the apes and the good guy, bad guy sense. I am sick of the all of the supposed bad government, bad investors, bad military play. It's over. Think of something new.
Rotten Tomatoes is showing this as a good movie but as a huge sci fi fan, this one fails. Stick to something more original.
