The Planet of the Apes reboot opened last year with critical praise and the promise of an exciting franchise. But Hollywood just wouldn’t be Hollywood unless it did something effortlessly stupid.
Nothing riles me more than a lazy sequel or the resurrection of a franchise that doesn’t need messing with, particularly when it is in the shape of a new origins story. It was therefore quite a surprise, to me at least, that last year’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes wasn’t quite the travesty it could have been (I’m looking at you Tim Burton). Critically and commercially well received, it is no surprise that a further instalment is in the works.
Last week, ubiquitous Irishman Michael Fassbender expressed his desire to once again don the signature helmet and cape of Magneto in a sequel to Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class. We covered the story and suggested that an announcement could well be expected in the near future.
It has taken merely 6 days for further news on the matter, and it's safe to say that it comes from the top.
In the first article from a new series, Lost in the Multiplex's newest writer looks at ten films each week that deal with a particular subject - this week, it's angry monkeys.
James Franco looks knackered. It’s no wonder, what with him having written a book, presented the 83rd Academy awards, obtained a PHD in literature from the prestigious Yale University and won a place to study for a second doctorate at Houston. And then there’s all that starring-in-films business, with Franco earning an Oscar nod for his performance in 127 Hours and critical praise for his portrayal of Allen Ginsberg in Howl, last year. Franco’s most recent outing in the cinema is as the lead in the clumsily titled franchise reboot, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. He appears as Will Rodman, a scientist at Gen-Sys - a pharmaceutical facility in San Francisco - experimenting on apes in order to find the cure for Alzheimer’s. It’s a case close to Wills’ heart due to the fact that his live-in father, Charles (John Lithgow), is a sufferer.
It's hard to believe that this year we've had two science fiction prequels from 20th Century Fox that have been excellent. but it's been a strange year. Rise of the Planet of the Apes has a fairly unwieldy title (it was originally called Caesar; then Rise of the Apes) but the film itself is a deftly-paced smartly-written blockbuster that'll not only surprise you, but will make you hate Draco Malfoy even more than ever before.
A Word of Warning: As this will go in-depth into the films in the series, it goes without saying that there are major spoilers here for anyone who hasn't seen these films. Additionally, if you haven't seen them, many websites have the Blu-Ray box set for a bargain price. Go ape!
Read the previous articles in this series, Part 1: Escape from the Planet of the Apes ; Part 2: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes ; Part 3: Battle for the Planet of the Apes ; Part 4: Planet of the Apes
Okay, so we've actually done the planet of the apes bit now. Chuck Heston has crash landed on that mysterious planet, only to meet a bunch of talking apes, some aggressive, some friendly. Because humans on the planet are generally mute, he's looked on as a freak of nature or something worse. Then he finds a certain BBW half-buried on the beach, and all of a sudden he realises, in the immortal words of Troy McClure, "Oh my god I was wrong, it was Earth all along".
YOU MANIACS!
A Word of Warning: As this will go in-depth into the films in the series, it goes without saying that there are major spoilers here for anyone who hasn't seen these films. Additionally, if you haven't seen them, many websites have the Blu-Ray box set for a bargain price. Go ape!
Read the previous articles in this series, Part 1: Escape from the Planet of the Apes ; Part 2: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes ; Part 3: Battle for the Planet of the Apes
Right. So, to recount so far, we've seen chimpanzee 'apenauts' land on the California coast, only to be brutally murdered when the government found out that A: they can talk; B: come from a future where ape dominates man and the earth is destroyed; C: one of them is pregnant with an ape child that will potentially be the catalyst that starts the planet to career towards being ruled by apes. The apes and their child are dead, everyone is safe and the world will continue as normal.
A Word of Warning: As this will go in-depth into the films in the series, it goes without saying that there are major spoilers here for anyone who hasn't seen these films. Additionally, if you haven't seen them, many websites have the Blu-Ray box set for a bargain price. Go ape!
Read the previous articles in this series, Part 1: Escape from the Planet of the Apes ; Part 2: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes
Previously, on Planet of the Apes...
Oh Caesar. That terrible talking monkey has got himself into trouble again, and in revenge for the murder of his surrogate-father and the fact that man has put his race into slavery, he's created his own ape army to take over the futuristic city that Governor Breck presides over. Remember the violent revolution, and the fire, and the speech that Caesar gives full of raging hatred against man where "there will be no place for humans except to serve our ends"?
A Word of Warning: As this will go in-depth into the films in the series, it goes without saying that there are major spoilers here for anyone who hasn't seen these films. Additionally, if you haven't seen them, many websites have the Blu-Ray box set for a bargain price. Go ape!
Read the first article in this series, Retread of the Planet of the Apes, Part 1: Escape from the Planet of the Apes
The last time we visited the Planet of the Apes, things weren't exactly hunky dory for the simian race. Cornelius and Zira, the two hyper-intelligent super-evolved chimpanzees who arrived on our world after travelling from the year 3950, were brutally murdered on the deck of a Navy cruiser by the Presidential Science Advisor. The only sliver of hope came from the final shot of the film, that of their son, Milo, who had been secreted away to a circus. The future (and past) of the planet of the apes lay in the balance, hanging by the thread. But it would be Milo - under the name of Caesar - who would ignore the odds and ensure that apekind would triumph over humankind, using his intelligence and his growing influence to usher in one thing: revolution
