Rise of the Planet of the Apes was the first installment of the reboot/prequel series to the Planet of the Apes franchise and released in 2011. Directed by Rupert Wyatt and starring Andy Serkis and James Franco, the film was released to critical acclaim, laying the foundation for subsequent sequels that have followed in years since, with the fourth film in the series, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, set to release on May 10th of this year. With the series proving to be a critical and box-office success, now is the perfect time to take a look back to where it all started and see if the film still holds up after all these years or if it has rotted and bruised like an old banana. Let’s swing in and find out!

Rise of the Planet of the Apes tells a simple story about a scientist named Will Rodman, played by James Franco. While working to create a cure for Alzheimer’s for his father (played by John Lithgow), Will tests his cure on a chimpanzee named Bright Eyes. Bright Eyes dies early in the film, shortly after giving birth to another ape who Will takes in and names Caesar (played by Andy Serkis through motion capture). Over the years Caesar grows to become an extremely intelligent ape with cognitive abilities on par with a human. When Caesar is later forced into an ape shelter where the apes are being mistreated, he takes it upon himself to lead the other apes in an uprising against their human captors. This is the inciting incident that begins the quick descent into the planet being taken over by apes, hence the namesake of the franchise. This story is told quite effectively throughout the film, using visual storytelling to show Caesar’s character arc and only utilizing expository dialogue when absolutely necessary. This creates a film that is well-paced and tells a coherent narrative in a relatively short run time.

The key strengths of the film are the visual effects and Andy Serkis’ motion capture performance. By the time this film was made, there had already been breakthrough motion capture performances such as Andy Serkis as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and the Na’vi in James Cameron’s Avatar. Those films walked so that this film could run. The motion capture technology is seamless and the convincing CGI makes the ape characters in the film come to life on screen in a way that feels true to their animalistic nature while also being able to showcase the talent of the actors doing the motion capture. Serkis in particular is a standout in his role as Caesar. He is able to portray so much anguish, grief, and energy in his facial expressions and body movements and manages to give so much gravitas to a performance that would otherwise be hard to take seriously if it had not been done so well. 

Despite this, the human character performances fail to match the intensity and sincerity portrayed by Serkis. This could largely be due to the fact that they were all not given enough time to flesh themselves out three-dimensionally, or because the filmmakers did not have as much interest in them and did not make them the central focus. James Franco and John Lithgow give decent enough performances, but their characters just aren’t given enough time to leave much of an impact. The other human characters either feel like they have zero development or feel like cartoonish caricatures and not real people. Writing realistic people may not have been the primary goal of the filmmakers, as it seems like they chose to portray humanity in a negative way so that humanity’s ultimate downfall at the end of the film would feel justified.

13 years after this film was released, we now have a new film in the franchise titled Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Taking place 300 years after Caesar’s reign, the new film will follow a new group of apes living in a time where humans have devolved into feral versions of themselves. Based on the trailer, it looks like the film will be commenting on the dynamics between humans and animals, told through a role reversal type of story. So far it looks like it has potential to be an interesting new take on the franchise while building on themes and ideas that were set up in the first film. Only time will tell how the overall quality is, but so far it is looking like it has the potential to be another major hit in a franchise that keeps on maintaining the freshness of a ripe banana right off the tree.