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1 Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
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Director: Rupert Wyatt
Starring: Andy Serkis, James Franco, John Lithgow, Freida Pinto
With a title as cumbersome and ham-fisted as the franchise’s woeful 2001 reboot, audiences weren’t exactly going “ape” at the thought of another stab at the simian saga. Which is why Wyatt’s accomplished sci-fi drama is all the more impressive. Both a daring reinvention and a subtle fanboy ode to the original (with reinterpretations of classic scenes and iconic dialogue aplenty), it offered spectacular monkey-tastic action set-pieces and mythology bolstering drama in equal measure. But it was Andy Serkis’ captivatingly eerie performance as lead ape Caesar that single-handedly re-opened the debate on whether a motion-capture performance could and should be nominated for an Oscar. Furry fuzzball or not, it was without a doubt the most entrancing and nuanced performance of this year’s big budget blockbusters, and the pivotal missing link in both the technology and genre’s desire to be taken seriously as a worthy awards-bothering contender.
Best moment: Caesar’s first word is a masterclass in ratcheting tension and goose-bump-tingling payoff.
Matt Risley
