Film REVIEWS
SCI-FI/ACTION/THRILLER RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (12A) 106min ●●●●●
After the folly that was Tim Burton’s remake of Planet of the Apes in 2001, many questioned the wisdom of trying to teach old apes new tricks, but Rupert Wyatt’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes takes an intelligent, sometimes exhilarating and even poignant look at the origins of the story that pays clever homage to the classic 1968 original while potentially re- establishing the franchise as a force once again.
The story focuses on a scientist (James Franco) who attempts to develop a cure for Alzheimer’s that will help his ailing father (John Lithgow) by testing it on apes, thereby giving one in particular, Caesar, a hyper intelligence and an ability to communicate with humans.
When Caesar is eventually placed into captivity and abused
by his new owners, however, the stage is set for rebellion. Wyatt, who previously directed the little seen but highly rated The Escapist, proves himself highly adept at marrying headline-influenced narrative with the visual spectacle required of a blockbuster.
The early part of the story will be familiar to anyone who has seen the recent Project Nim (see review, below) in its account of the human interaction with Caesar, while issues of drug testing on animals and corporate greed are also thrown into the mix. It lends the film a credible and highly relatable core. The effects, meanwhile, are astonishing, and Andy Serkis’
motion-capture depiction of Caesar enables audiences to really connect on an emotional level with the central players and probably even root for the apes. There are flaws, including one-dimensional villains (Tom
Felton and David Oyelowo especially) and occasional heavy handedness, but in most respects this expertly mixes intelligence and spectacle to hugely impressive effect, while the clever nods to Charlton Heston and company merely supply the icing on the cake. (Rob Carnevale) ■ General release from Thu 11 Aug.
DOCUMENTARY PROJECT NIM (12A) 99min ●●●●●
Project Nim was an ill-conceived experiment in which Columbia University behavioural psychologist Herb Terrace took a baby chimp – Nim – and convinced Stephanie LaFarge, one of his ex- girlfriends, now married with children, to take the chimp into her home, and treat Nim as one of the family. ‘Only in the 70s,’ is how one interview subject aptly describes it. James Marsh’s film plays out through detailed
interviews with everyone involved, alongside some amazing archive footage and dramatically charged reconstructions. It’s a very similar filmmaking approach to Marsh’s previous Man On Wire, but Marsh makes up for playing it safe stylistically by plumbing the subject’s thematic depths to pull out a deeply affecting story. This is an animal story that’s populated by a fascinating cast of humans, and Marsh successfully draws out their considered and contradictory opinions. What emerges is both a heartbreaking tale of the mistreatment of one ‘dumb animal’ and a complex meditation on the very best and worst aspects of human nature. (Paul Gallagher) ■ GFT, Glasgow and Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 12–Thu 25 Aug.
116 THE LIST 11–18 Aug 2011
DRAMA THE SALT OF LIFE (GIANNI E LE DONNE) (12A) 89min ●●●●●
Rome-born Gianni Di Gregorio’s follow-up to Mid- August Lunch is moderately wider in scope but retains its predecessor’s loose, naturalistic style. It focuses on Gianni’s anxieties about ageing and his relationships with a variety of women including his wife, his daughter, a party-girl neighbour, old flames, as well as the force of nature that is his mother. Played once again by the wonderful Valeria De Franciscis Bendoni, Donna Valeria is seen frittering away her son’s inheritance (expensive champagne, designer clothes for her maid, organising poker tournaments) while he struggles on a basic pension. The central problem for Gianni, however, remains his own crisis of confidence. As with the director’s previous film, The Salt of Life is unashamedly autobiographical. Di Gregorio pokes fun at his own insecurities, providing an image of the older Italian male that is in many ways the antithesis of Berlusconi. It’s a film of great warmth and sincerity, a bittersweet comedy that consolidates Italian cinema’s recent revival. (Pasquale Iannone) ■ GFT, Glasgow and Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 12 – Thu 25 Aug.
THRILLER/POLITICAL ELITE SQUAD 2 – THE ENEMY WITHIN (TROPA DE ELITE: O INIMIGO AGORA E OUTRO) (18) 114min ●●●●●
Returning to the favela killing fields of his reactionary 2008 thriller, the schizophrenically talented writer/director José Padilha (Bus 174, Garapa) resurrects Captain Nascimento, but this time the right wing, law-and-order sympathies are being torched quicker than a drug dealer’s ghetto hideout. The Enemy Within unsurprisingly finds Nascimento (Wagner Moura) going after dirty cops and government officials while explaining in great wordy detail the labyrinthine connections between Rio’s criminal and law enforcement organisations. Throw in some topical plotlines and some serious kickass violent set pieces and you have Brazil’s biggest box office hit ever.
Where the wordy laborious script drains the life out of what is essentially a Lumet-ian thriller with Nascimento crossing the yard to stand next to the likes of Serpico and Daniel Ciello (Prince of the City), Padilha as director more than compensates with a breathless feel for pace and plot with great help from editor Daniel Rezende. (Paul Dale) ■ Selected release from Fri 12 Aug.