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Arts & Entertainment

Ape Movie Doesn't Monkey Around

The resident Patch movie guru gives Rise of the Planet of the Apes two opposable thumbs up.

Chimps, gorillas and other primates take some mind-altering drugs and give a big, hairy smackdown to the humans in Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

James Franco plays a scientist trying to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease, which has stricken his father (played by John Lithgow). Franco’s character rescues a newborn test chimp and names him Caesar. 

Caesar grows up to be so smart that he is sent to a “primate shelter”—ape prison. Caesar gets angry, then uses his brain to rally the other apes and get even.

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The great Andy Serkis, best known as Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, provides another wonderful performance-capture acting role as the CGI-ed Caesar. This is his movie.

It is the seventh Planet of the Apes movie and the best by far since the 1968 original with Charlton Heston.

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Breaking it down, the ape uprising in response to the evil prison guards seemed a bit cliché, but the monkey mayhem afterward was enjoyable. The flick-o-meter gives Rise of the Planet of the Apes four out of five. 

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