Rise of the planet of Apes (2011)

This is my first movie rental on Google play which I chromecasted to a HD TV. It was a HD version for Rs.120…video quality is good, but that of audio is not up to the mark. Guess this is a feature with digital copies as well,  just like the physical DVDs and Blu-Rays available in India.

‘Rise of the planet of Apes (2011)’ is a decent science fiction with a good enough script that lends the required emotional wrap for an action film. It also sports spectacular special effects.

Here are some excerpts from reviews online (From Simian Disobedience )

 Here Caesar plots his escape and, with a developing species consciousness, devises a program of ape solidarity, while Rise becomes a very effective self-contained jailhouse drama, replete with nemesis guard (Tom Felton), prison yard bully (“Rocket”), and the wise old lifer (“Maurice”), a shaggy, melancholy baboon. (Director Wyatt’s previous film, 2008’s The Escapist, was, incidentally, a prison-break picture.)

At this point we’ve spent so much time with Caesar that our identification with the primate is complete, and the ensuing orgy of destruction is played more for a vicarious rush than horror. Some fantastic images follow: A tree-lined suburban street showered with leaves as an invisible army swings through the canopy; a zoo breakout, with apes repurposing wrought-iron fence spikes as spears; the age-old rivalry between gorilla and helicopter. The final shot denotes the ambitions of the apes and 20th Century Fox, respectively: Empire, and franchise.

and RogerEbert.com

That said, the movie has its pleasures, although human intelligence is not one of them. Caesar, to begin with, is a wonderfully executed character, a product of special effects and a motion-capture performance by Andy Serkis, who earlier gave us Gollum in “Lord of the Rings” (and returns in the upcoming “The Hobbit”). One never knows exactly where the human ends and the effects begin, but Serkis and/or Caesar gives the best performance in the movie.