Monkey business

THANKS to Michael Jackson, back in the early 1990s everyone (myself included) wanted a pet monkey. However, after watching this movie I think I dodged a metaphorical bullet because these chimps give a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘going ape’.

Spiderman and 127 Hours star, James Franco is back on top form for this prequel to the iconic Planet of the Apes. In the original, Charlton Heston stars as the leader of a crew of astronauts who crash land on a planet in the distant future where intelligent talking apes are the dominant species, and humans are oppressed and enslaved.
 
This prequel not only sets the scene for the original in an epic fashion, it’s also a fantastic story that offers a cutting critique of humanity at its best and worst and poses the question: how far can you experiment with science before you change the rules of nature?

The film opens at a genetic therapy pharmaceutical company where a female ape called Bright Eyes is being given a dose of an experimental drug which increases her intelligence dramatically.

The drug’s creator, Will Rodman (Franco), is so impressed with the results that he convinces his boss to proceed with human trials.

The next day, Will and his boss meet with the company’s board of directors to explain what the drug does in a bid to get them to green light the project. Besides making monkeys smarter, there are wider implications for the drug … it could heal degenerative brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. 

However, back in the lab, as Bright Eyes is being prepared for the demonstration she suddenly goes crazy and begins attacking her handlers. After making her way to the board room and causing chaos, effectively killing any hope for the project, she is shot and killed.

Will tries to convince his boss that the incident was merely a setback and that the drug has massive potential but his pleas fall on deaf ears.

After being told in no uncertain terms that the project is ‘dead’ Will is then tasked with putting down the rest of the apes in the programme. He returns to the lab to find that Bright Eyes wasn’t acting violently because of the drug, she was pregnant and was just trying to protect her baby (which survived).

Since the baby chimp is the only remnant of the project and Will doesn’t have the heart to put him down, he takes him home.

Will lives with his father, Charles (Lithgow) a kindly, elderly gentleman suffering from the later stages of Alzheimer’s. Charles immediately takes a shine to the chimp and even names it Caesar after his love for Shakespeare.

Since Caesar makes his dad happy, Will decides to keep him around and is astounded at how quickly he learns new things. It turns out that the drug given to Bright Eyes has been passed down genetically to Caesar and as the years pass, he becomes smarter and smarter.

Sadly, while Caesar gets brighter by the day, Charles shows signs that the illness is getting worse, causing Will to break into the lab and steal a dose of the drug for his father.

Luckily, it works and Charles has a new lease on life … at least for a while, anyway.

Meanwhile, Caesar becomes frustrated at being treated like a pet. After witnessing an attack on Charles by a neighbour the heroic Caesar jumps in to save the day but is taken away by animal control officers who deem him too dangerous to stay free.

Much to Will’s dismay, Caesar is locked away with other apes in a zoo where he gradually plots his escape and his revenge on the humans that abandoned him and experimented on his ape brethren.

This is one of the best films I have seen all year because it mixes genuinely believable science fiction with mind-blowing special effects and a tightly-written script.

Each member of the cast shines in their own unique way but Franco steals the show with his performance, no easy task since he shot most of the film talking to a computer generated chimp.

Lithgow is one of my favourite actors because he has such a broad range and he plays his role perfectly. As someone who has seen first-hand the debilitating effects of Alzheimer’s, I can honestly say Lithgow has done a fantastic job portraying the frustration and despair the disease causes.

A special mention must also go to Andy Serkis who created the movements of Caesar and is no stranger to portraying an ape having provided the movements for the titular character in the 2005 remake of King Kong.

This is a powerful and fast-paced film with a heart of gold and an important message about messing with the rules of nature.