I was in the minority opinion on the first teaser for The Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I thought the effects were phenomenal, but the story and performances seemed uninspiring.
Now comes a full length trailer from Yahoo! Movies, and my opinion isn’t 100% reversed (this is a franchise I don’t think I’ll ever love), I’m a lot more intrigued. Here, Caesar emerges as a character — a sweet, trusting little chimp who is abused into revolution. You can’t help but sympathize with him. Burn the world, Caesar!
However, it’s still the stuff around Caesar that looks like a major problem. Franco seems half-asleep, and Freida Pinto seems utterly lost, as if she’s reading lines off a cue card. If there’s to be any drama to this story at all, we’ve got to believe in the human-ape dynamic as much as we do the CG apes. If they’re cardboard cutouts, where’s the horror (or pleasure) in seeing them knocked down?
But at least it finally looks like a film I’d like to see, although I’m disappointed there seem to be no orangutans. I can’t believe my favorite gingers are going to be left out of the revolution!