Rise of the Planet of the Apes

It’s difficult to say why I liked this so much. It’s full of surprises. The protagonist is not James Franco, or one of the other humans. The protagonist is Caesar, the one lucky chimp who survived a cruel medical trial. He’s the underdog, and he spends the first half of the movie getting kicked around by humans and apes alike. But he wants what EVERY animal wants, human or ape: he wants freedom. And he has what everyone wants: super intelligence. It’s a tasty dish of cold vengeance to watch him manipulate his way to the top of the food chain, while humankind manages to self destruct. A lot of the credit for the success Caesar's sympathetic ordeal should go to Andy Serkis, the performance capture artist who helped make Caesar the most subtle and complicated non-human character since "Wall-E." Everything about this was good, but again, I’m not sure why. Maybe I haven’t seen enough good movies lately. Or maybe I needed a really good underdog story. Or maybe Rise of the Planet of the Apes is just really well-made.