Since there will soon be a new entry in the Planet of the Apes franchise, I suppose I will start tackling these turkeys.  It is one of the more well-known series that I have yet to address.  Some of you might be thinking, wait a minute, Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) is not the first one to bear the title.  While true, as I understand it, these modern adaptations are meant to be a prequels, explaining how we got to an Earth dominated by our so-called genetic cousins.  Now, as a practicing Catholic, I want you to know that this (at least for this one, I think) will not be about evolution or how it could explain the so-called link between man and simian.  For the umpteenth time, Catholicism is not opposed to evolution, or science in general for that matter.  What I will say, though, is that this does not work as a science fiction film, at least not to my limited knowledge of that branch of study.  I am a historian by trade, but there are just a few too many moments in this movie that had me saying, “huh?”  It works better if you look at it as a philosophical treatise on why we should not be terrible human beings, and that works well with Faith.

Speaking of being terrible human beings, somewhere in the African jungle a group of poachers capture a shrewdness (I had to look it up, too) of chimpanzees, which will eventually trigger the Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  One of their number ends up in the laboratories of a biotechnology company called Gen-Sys, where one of their leading scientists, Dr. Will Rodman (James Franco), is working on a drug called ALZ-112.  In case the letters do not make it obvious, it is hoped to be a treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease.  Our main chimp, which Dr. Rodman refers to as “Bright Eyes” because of the drug’s effect on her, displays increased cognitive function.  She is building new cells in the brain, and that is what Dr. Rodman needs to get his boss, Steven Jacobs (David Oyelowo), to approve human testing.  Just as they are about to present to the board, Bright Eyes inexplicably goes mad, breaks out of her cell, and ends up being shot dead on the meeting room table.  The money-driven Steven orders the rest of the test subjects killed and the project scrapped in an attempt to economically salvage the situation.  As it turns out, Bright Eyes had been pregnant, and her behavior had been to protect her child.  Dr. Rodman’s assistant, Robert Franklin (Tyler Labine), gives the infant to Dr. Rodman, not willing to kill it along with the others.  Reluctantly, Dr. Rodman takes the little one home, though it compounds his domestic troubles.  Now, not only does he have a baby monkey to care for, but also an aging father, Charles Rodman (John Lithgow), with Alzheimer’s.  Do you get Dr. Rodman’s motivation yet?  After a particularly difficult day with dad, Dr. Rodman decides to abscond from Gen-Sys with whatever is left of ALZ-112 and administer it to his father.  The next morning, Charles awakens apparently restored.  This is not the only aspect of Dr. Rodman’s life that looks to be improving.  The chimp, who Charles names Caesar (Andy Serkis), is showing signs of accelerated brain development.  As such, Dr. Rodman treats Caesar more like a human child, albeit one that needs to stay in-doors.  This need is driven home when Caesar sees a bike outside, and, well, gets curious. . . .  Sorry.  The result is being slightly injured by an over-reacting neighbor (David Hewlett) with a baseball bat.  On the positive side, it prompts a visit to the zoo veterinarian, Dr. Caroline Aranha (Freida Pinto), who Caesar convinces Dr. Rodman to take on a date.  Five years later, and I think they are married?  That could just be wishful Catholic thinking on my part.  In any case, this is the time at which things begin to fall apart.  It starts with Caesar seeing a dog on a leash, noticing his own collar and similar restraint, and wondering whether he is a pet.  Dr. Rodman assures Caesar that the chimpanzee is a member of the family.  Speaking of family, Charles is going backwards with his disease.  The ALZ-112 is being resisted by his body, prompting Dr. Rodman to go back to the lab to look for a solution.  This leaves Caesar at home alone with Charles.  One day, Charles wanders into the street in confusion and gets into the car of the same neighbor as earlier in the film.  He comes out and attacks Charles, prompting Caesar to violently react.  Animal control comes to take Caesar to a facility run by the evil John Landon (Brian Cox), whose center is run more like a prison than a sanctuary.  Caesar does not understand why he cannot go home with Dr. Rodman and grows bitter.  While Dr. Rodman tries in vain to free Caesar, the scientist also commences work on a new ALZ variant.  This means a new batch of primates, some of which come from John’s dungeon.  During the application of ALZ-113 to a new chimpanzee with rare qualities, this one called Koba (Christopher Gordon), the aerosol form of the drug gets into Robert’s lungs.  He will eventually die from this, but not before infecting a whole host of people.  As for Caesar, careful observation of the cruelty of John’s employees, combined with Dr. Rodman’s failures to release him, convince Caesar that he must do something for his own kind.  When another inmate, an orangutan that can sign named Maurice (Karin Konoval), points out that apes are stupid, Caesar busts out to take the drug that Dr. Rodman had been applying to Charles to use on his fellows.  This creates a pack of, if you will excuse the expression, super monkeys that spearhead the uprising.  In the chaos, Caesar leads his new followers to the redwood forest where Dr. Rodman liked to bring him, and hopefully to live peacefully.  This is where Dr. Rodman has one last embrace with Caesar before the movie ends.

During the post-credits scene of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, we see that the hot-headed neighbor is an airlines pilot.  As the list of names rolls once more, we see the disease spreading across the world.  I guess this is meant to show how humans are wiped out, thus paving the way for the title.  Given our collective recent experience with COVID, this part is probably a little too real.  Yet, that is not the science aspect that bothered me.  I get that there are some awful people in the world, but the bad guys are a little too bad for this film to work as science fiction.  When dealing with science, the imperative of doing correct science usually (but not always, obviously and unfortunately) outweigh the motivation of profit.  Not only do we see Steven running of afoul of this rule, but also with John and his sadistic son and underling, Dodge Landon (Tom Felton).  I am not so naïve to think that people are not capable of such behavior.  At the same time, Faith tells us that this is not how God created us to be.  It is not simply difficult to think that such people could exist, and I sincerely pray that it is true, but that they could actually behave like this and not see the consequences of their actions is hard to accept.  For some, sadly, this is not enough of a deterrent.  This only enhances the importance of Faith.  Of course, believing in God, going to Mass, and practicing the Sacraments does not automatically make one a saint.  Nonetheless, God has the most direct pathway to our hearts through these functions.  In the film, there is no mention of Christianity. Please understand I am not trying to make a direct correlation here, but the absence is of interest to a reviewer like myself.  As such, I cannot say there is one character in the film, with, perhaps, the exception of Dr. Aranha, that are without scruples.  Obviously, nobody is perfect, but I am not sure somebody who is striving for it in a spiritual sense would be so willing to bend the rules of science as is Dr. Rodman.  He does redeem himself by the end, but it speaks to why the film is best watched not as science fiction.

Does that mean I recommend Rise of the Planet of the Apes in general?  Meh.  It is okay, but nothing spectacular.  It does teach the lesson that we need to sometimes accept things instead of trying to fix them, which jives with Catholicism.  Yet, it is buried a bit with the rest of this mishmash.  As for the rest, I do not know if I will watch the rest consecutively, but I do hope they get better.  I did see one other in this series, but I cannot remember which one.  I do not recall it being good.  Uh-oh.