Man’s arrogance sets off a chain of events that leads to intelligence in apes and a challenge to our place as the dominant species on the planet. Caesar, the first intelligent ape, is betrayed by humans and rises up to lead his species’ spectacular race to freedom and the ultimate showdown with Man.
Reviews
Empire Magazine
Kim Newman
"It takes a while to get there, but the Rise delivers the best set-piece finale of the summer... A worthy, exciting, emotional addition to the venerable monkey movie marathon. Apes will rise. Sequels are likely."
29/08/2011
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The Evening Standard
David Sexton
"This movie plays on our fellow feeling for the great apes by having not just chimpanzees but courageous gorillas and sympathetic orang-utangs in the cast. Perhaps we're so susceptible to their appeal because we yearn for liberation from our species' loneliness from any quarter, whether apes from below or aliens from above? "
08/12/2011
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The Sunday Express
Henry Fitzherbert
"The picture delivers some thrilling, very fluidly-mounted action as the camera seemingly floats through the air alongside the apes."
08/12/2011
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The Guardian
Peter Bradshaw
"This prequel does not quite have the scabrous quality of the original 1968 movie, the topsy-turvy world in which apes rule over human slaves, nor its bold racial satire... But there is something transgressive in the story of Caesar's relentless IQ-march, and a radical political education not attributable to the drugs."
08/11/2011
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The Independent
Anthony Quinn
"As a summer blockbuster Rise of the Planet of the Apes won't regenerate any brain-cells, but it doesn't forget a sense of humanity while delivering its package of thrills."
08/12/2011
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The Independent on Sunday
Tim Walker
"Rise... is another great leap forward for Weta, Peter Jackson's New Zealand-based digital effects house, which has created not just one sympathetic character but a cast of CGI primates with utterly convincing, dialogue-free relationships. That strikes me as a remarkable achievement."
29/08/2011
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The Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
"Smart, fun and thoroughly enjoyable, it's a model summer diversion that entertains without insulting your intelligence. "
08/05/2011
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The New York Times
Manohla Dargis
"The film is largely, perversely upbeat. It's the end of the world as we know it, and the animals feel fine."
08/04/2011
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Total Film
Neil Smith
"With simulated simians authentic enough to make Project Nim look almost phoney, allied to an involving, evolving story, Rise is the Planet we’ve been waiting for.
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08/05/2011
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The Daily Telegraph
Tim Robey
"For the time being, [Wyatt’s] delivered the goods with satisfying pace and craft — Weta Digital’s effects work on the apes, especially Caesar’s face, is unobtrusively marvellous, laying icky memories of the Tim Burton one to merciful rest."
08/11/2011
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The Times
Wendy Ide
"Rupert Wyatt has crafted a film that places almost as much emphasis on character (albeit ape rather than human) as it does on the action. That said, this film is no match for the forceful originality of the first picture"
08/12/2011
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The Sunday Times
Edward Porter
"All that can be said with certainty is that [Caesar's] revolutionary activities — picking locks, punishing guards, recruiting fellow apes for a rampage through San Francisco — are fun to behold. The film is a spectacular circus show involving no harm at all to actual animals."
14/08/2011
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The Financial Times
Nigel Andrews
"Seen it all before. Show me some ape stuff that’s new and surprising."
08/11/2011
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The Observer
Philip French
"A commonplace tale that draws on the current fashion for human self-loathing and continuing suspicion of scientific experimentation"
29/08/2011
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