Up and at 'Em: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

BLOG POST posted on August 27, 2011 by isaac

We're on a roof

Very come-on-then-let's-be-having-you

Most awkward moment in a film in 2011

First of all let me say I'm not your average film reviewer. Case in point: this review was written after finishing packing for my third move this year, from East to South Van. You know, because packing made me think about uprising. Packing reminded me of my first time coming into this country, which reminded me how today a man told me how stupid it was to celebrate July 1 as Canada Day if one doesn't celebrate the day the British Raj conquered India, which reminded me how it would be awesome if indigenous peoples in Canada might one day have their own independence day, which made me think it would be great for me to have an independence day I could actually celebrate instead of be ashamed of (colonial division of India and the Gulf Middle East, etcetera), which made me think about Rise of Planet of the Apes: a very quite rather terrific film.

To put it into perspective: the only film I've seen in a theatre twice.

The second time I saw it, I also snuck a peak at the Harry Potter finale. And while the internet overfills with analysis of the latter blockbuster production, I'd like to humbly tip my hat to the Apes.

I have to say, putting aside any sort of political bent, you have to love it when people put their minds to actually building a mythology instead of just turning it into a bloated franchise for money (Barbershop 2, man I don't even need to put any more examples on here). And whoever it is that made this film (not a big credit person either, I am) really nurtured their love for the original films and maybe even series. It took me a second look to realize that the symbol Caesar (the arguable protagonaist) keeps drawing becomes the symbol for the apes in the series'. You get to very much watch the beginning of something excellent.

But yes, let's get to the politics of the whole thing.

It's just brilliant to see a film where a white dude doesn't fetishize a culture and then save it (bloody Avatar bollocks). No, this is very much about uprising, coming from a realization that one is a slave. The comparisons could fill the refrigerator of a supermodel.

And it's just filled with enough explosions and crap that you can take someone apolitical to it and then grin afterwards. Little seed and all that.

There's an emotional pull to this film that cannot be denied. The moment the apes pull together their escape, you're with them. And that's something. And what a rebellion! Well worth the watch.

And let's face it, you're with Caesar the moment he's revealed: this little ape that makes funny faces and just wants to be.

From my dear anarchist friend and former roommate: "The only thing I didn't like was that Caesar was against beating up the cops."

Yeah.

There is an uncomfortable bit of primitivism here as well. With it comes the usual Hollywood 'Merican-driven paranoia of technology and genetics. Frankenstein, end of humanity, that sort of thing.

Absurdly delicious when put next to the info given to me by the industry-knowing Indigenous artist I went to Rise of the Planet of the Apes with the second time: "Umm that Indian gal the scientist is dating had a total nose job. You know, to look more assimilated."

But this is why one gets attached to the apes so much: the humans really have quite lost it. Unlike the original mythology that the apes becomes slaves and then get so depended on that they take over, here the humans are the progenitors of their own downfall. It's something to watch.

Quite literally, you get to watch the beginning of the end of the world as you know it, and you do for the most part feel fine(ly).

Oh, but don't get sucked into the extra $3 for the special screen at Metrotown cinema. Yeah it was nice to get a reclining seat, but I honestly couldn't see the big difference in image and sound quality. Wankers.