For a movie whose trailer seemed fake at first glance (a serious drama about a superintelligent ape and his issues?), RotPotA (rot-POT-uh) does an incredible job getting you invested in the plight of a chimp. Low budget for a summer blockbuster, this ninety million dollar film focuses on the rise of Caesar, first of his species and leader of the apes. We watch as he grows up, casts off his human friendships, and eventually leads a revolt in the hopes of achieving freedom for his people, err, his fellow apes.

Whether or not you're going to like this movie boils down to one thing: can you buy into it? Can you lay your hard-earned money on the line and accept Caesar as a fully human character with hopes and fears? Since the actual humans are sort of irrelevant and the apes are incapable of speech, there's not a lot to go on. Basically, if you liked the first 40 minutes of Wall-E, then you'll probably be fine. Caesar may not be a lovable trash robot (or is he?! Twist!), but Andy Serkis does an incredible job conveying his feelings through his motions. Serkis must've spent years living among the apes of the wild to achieve such realistic mimicry (he went to Rwanda and chilled in zoos!), and he strikes epic and expressive poses aplenty, each one conveying Caesar's thoughts without feeling obvious and overblown. By the end of the movie, you'll care more about Caesar than any actual human (in the film--hopefully not in real life). You'll fear for his friends and root for his victory. Honestly, an ape that likable? I'll let him rise above me any day.

Once you're down with the movie's premise, and once you're finally ok with Franco's whole "Let's make a much more aggressive form of this untested virus! What could possibly go wrong?" line of thinking, you're ready to experience a truly great film.

The movie builds and builds, each scene more intense than the last. Watching Caesar slowly learn to despise humanity is fantastic, and when he finally becomes a total champion, you're with him all the way. There's a moment when the music changes and Caesar first uses a basic tool to win his freedom, and I couldn't have been more stoked. Then he goes on to recruit his friends, who are all hardcore. I wasn't really sure what their names were, so I made my own: Grayback, the original leader whom Caesar overthrows, Jowly, the friendly circus orangutan with giant, jiggling jowls, Kong, the huge gorilla, and Scar, the one-eyed embodiment of evil. While they cannot be as well drawn as normal human characters due to the lack of dialogue, I still had a distinct understanding of each of their personalities.

Just like I distinctly understood Draco Malfoy's new character. He once again nailed the sniveling jerk role. I hated that guy so much. He was just so mean to the apes! I guess what he didn't count on was that they'd all become superintelligent. Nobody expects that (in that way, it's like the Spanish Inquisition). His somewhat subpar predictive powers aside, he does get the best Planet of the Apes reference, shouting, "Take your stinking paws off me, you d*mn dirty ape!"

It's people like that who'll make the apes kill us all, which reminds me: the climax of this movie is crazy epic. It takes place on the Golden Gate bridge, and it's unbelievably fun to watch the ramshackle ape army use their new intelligence to take on the unprepared humans.

Not everything was perfectly executed, but all the problems feel like pointless nitpicks. Some characters agree to things a little too quickly, one or two lines are just a little off, Franco gives up on freeing Caesar super easily, the girlfriend should've had either a much larger or much smaller role, and they don't show some scenes of the other apes getting exposed to the intelligence drug (I just assume they cut that scene but that it happened). Also, the entire audience laughed at the epic/heartwarming scene between James Franco and Caesar in the forest at the end, and while it did feel a little ridiculous, it's that same issue I brought up before. You have to buy into this film. You have to let go of that cynical part of you and allow yourself to enjoy what you're seeing. The movie takes its premise 100% seriously, and there's no room for laughter.

In the end, this film is so good that I found myself lost in it. I was unaware of the music, the pacing, the acting, everything, because I was just too busy being completely invested and enjoying the heck out of myself. I cannot wait for the sequel. In a rare piece of cinema, this movie managed to feel complete on its own and yet leave you craving more. If you had to see one film this summer (and you didn't care about the cultural impact of Harry Potter), this would be it.

Score: 4.5/5 ˘

One of the best end credits ever. Rarely do I actually care about what's happening in the background behind the names, but here I was devastated.

Check out more on "The Nickel Screen" (Google it!)

I admit I've seen the first Planet of the Apes and loved it! But I hated the other sequels! But when I saw the previews for this movie my thoughts were, "Jeez another one?" But when my grandparents and I actually went to the movies and saw the movie for ourselves, we loved it. Its a stand alone movie and its NOT a cheesy sequel to the original and its not a remake. It has a lot of action. Of course James Franco who was in the movie was extremly handsome too! LOL! And the special effects were awesome. It also tells how the chimpanzees get smarter. By the end of the movie everyone including me in the audience were clapping. I don't want to give away too much. Whether your a fan of the original Planet of the Apes or even if you haven't seen the original Planet of the Apes you will love this movie.

After the fiasco reimagining Tim Burton did with his Planet of the Apes movie(even though I liked it), It is understandable that people looked to Rise of the Planet of the Apes with alot of skepticism. Rise(as I'll refer to it from now on) tells the story of how Caesar became aware(able to think for himself, if you will) and then became the leader of the army that will, one day, lead a rebellion against humanity.

When I saw the trailer for the movie months before, I was quite disappointed with it. To be brutally honest, I never thought that Director Rupert Wyatt could pull off a serious reboot of the Planet of the Apes movies without it looking abit like Burton's film but, lo and behold, with Andy Serkis' performance as Caesar- he does more than that. He actually makes the story believable. If Serkis or Wyatt one doesn't get an award during the Oscars, then those people in Hollywood are just plain silly. Being a hardcore Planet of the Apes fans, I came out of the theater more than pleased with the film.

If I had anything to nitpick about with the movie, it would be the deliberate pacing in the movie. It was a little slow for my tastes. However, the payoff at the end more than makes up for all that.

In the end, all I can say is, if you don't check Rise of the Planet of the Apes out, you're missing one heckuva movie.