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Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The studio's weekly screening yesterday was of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and as I could spare the time, and had heard good things about it, I went.
It wasn't bad, but I think the fuss about it is more a reflection on the overall quality of movies this summer than its own intrinsic brilliance. I was quite content not to have seen it before, and now, having seen it, I could have been content never to have, but I did enjoy it to some extent and don't regret having spent nearly two hours on it. Personally, I would sum up its goodness in two words: ANDY SERKIS.
That man has some serious acting chops. He could make a career out of giving seminars to animation studios on how to communicate clearly, effectively, and originally with physicality alone (if anyone would listen ...). It was both inspiring and depressing to me, as I'm grappling with the awareness that I need to improve my [drawn] acting skills but also all too aware of the overwhelming why bother? wafting from my current work situation. I digress, though. Andy Serkis! Until he takes his wisdom on tour we have to make do with him having actual fun pretending to be one simian or another. More often than not I was paying more attention to gleaning every nuance of his performance than to following the actual story, but that was okay because it was pretty basically laid out and took enough time to tell itself that I could catch up no problem. It wasn't pandering, though, which is an important distinction – just deliberate enough that I could afford to get hung up on things like that, or be distracted by a passing familiarity with conifer species, or try to figure out where they shot things. They did a very thorough job of making Vancouver look like San Francisco, and their actual location footage was blended in seamlessly, but I sussed them out regardless – vine maples don't lie!
The effects were really quite good, and while I could tell the apes were CG it didn't bother me, aside from trying to delineate what the 'tells' were (something about the movement, either too smooth or not smooth enough, I don't know), and of course Caesar's performance was so good I didn't care after a while. Also: points to the casting director for the indiscriminate multiracial casting! It was practically British! Speaking of British, I hope Tom Felton manages to land a role someday where he's not a nasty petty juvenile delinquent, because he's really quite good.
I haven't seen any of the original movies, and I felt perhaps I would have gotten more out of this one if I were more familiar with them beyond what I've absorbed via cultural osmosis, but it was easy enough to follow and entertaining all the same.
Well there you have it: a review that's useful to no one but myself. Tadaa! Now let's see... are there any movies coming out this fall that I'm looking forward to ...?
It wasn't bad, but I think the fuss about it is more a reflection on the overall quality of movies this summer than its own intrinsic brilliance. I was quite content not to have seen it before, and now, having seen it, I could have been content never to have, but I did enjoy it to some extent and don't regret having spent nearly two hours on it. Personally, I would sum up its goodness in two words: ANDY SERKIS.
That man has some serious acting chops. He could make a career out of giving seminars to animation studios on how to communicate clearly, effectively, and originally with physicality alone (if anyone would listen ...). It was both inspiring and depressing to me, as I'm grappling with the awareness that I need to improve my [drawn] acting skills but also all too aware of the overwhelming why bother? wafting from my current work situation. I digress, though. Andy Serkis! Until he takes his wisdom on tour we have to make do with him having actual fun pretending to be one simian or another. More often than not I was paying more attention to gleaning every nuance of his performance than to following the actual story, but that was okay because it was pretty basically laid out and took enough time to tell itself that I could catch up no problem. It wasn't pandering, though, which is an important distinction – just deliberate enough that I could afford to get hung up on things like that, or be distracted by a passing familiarity with conifer species, or try to figure out where they shot things. They did a very thorough job of making Vancouver look like San Francisco, and their actual location footage was blended in seamlessly, but I sussed them out regardless – vine maples don't lie!
The effects were really quite good, and while I could tell the apes were CG it didn't bother me, aside from trying to delineate what the 'tells' were (something about the movement, either too smooth or not smooth enough, I don't know), and of course Caesar's performance was so good I didn't care after a while. Also: points to the casting director for the indiscriminate multiracial casting! It was practically British! Speaking of British, I hope Tom Felton manages to land a role someday where he's not a nasty petty juvenile delinquent, because he's really quite good.
I haven't seen any of the original movies, and I felt perhaps I would have gotten more out of this one if I were more familiar with them beyond what I've absorbed via cultural osmosis, but it was easy enough to follow and entertaining all the same.
Well there you have it: a review that's useful to no one but myself. Tadaa! Now let's see... are there any movies coming out this fall that I'm looking forward to ...?