Saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes last night.
giving it a cool 6 out of 10.
Lovely Frieda Pinto needed more lines instead of those sound bites. She's a vet for pete's sake, surely she had more input in this animal story? Lithgow was his inimitable self. The neighbour had a corbeau peeing on him all through the movie. Franco needs acting lessons for his face.
Was that Malfoy as the zoo keeper's son?
Ending was dotish as hell.
All Hail Caesar.
Saw it last night as well... I'd rate it much higher, like an 8. Much better than I expected. Freida Pinto is lovely to look at, but that's about it. Even with her minimal lines I heard her Bollywood accent peeking thru... in addition to her not having a very substantial role in the movie, I imagine that this was a consideration in minimizing her lines.
I'm curious to know what effect ALZ-13 has on humans... although I have a very good idea.
Probably my favorite part was where Ceasar spoke for the first time... powerful.
Liked the little nods to the original movies: the "filthy ape" line, the statue of Liberty that Caesar plays with, the Jeep Waggoneer that Franco drives (from "Escape from the Planet of the Apes") etc.
Ending was fine for me... sets up the sequel brilliantly if they so desire.
p.s. yeah, that was Malfoy as the son of the shelter owner. The owner himself is played by Brian Cox, another brilliant British character actor. Most would know him as Col. Stryker in X2, few might remember him from Spike Lee's "The 25th Hour", one of my all-time favorite movies. Even fewer will know him for having initiated the role of "Hannibal Lechter" in a 1986 movie called "Manhunter", the first treatment of Thomas Harris' most famous character, later remade as "Red Dragon"... another of my all-time favorite movies. Reading between the lines, one can tell I'm a big Edward Norton fan ("25th Hour" and "Red Dragon").
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Also saw
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark which was decent... the humans in the movie were even more dotish than the child, but all in all it wasn't bad. Nice twist on a traditional fairy tale character... I figured early on in the movie that this is where they were going but ah wasn't sure.
Guillermo Del Toro directed... one of my favorite directors, he did "Blade II". He also wrote and directed "Pan's Labyrinth" and "The Devil's Backbone" two more on my list of my all-time favorites.
I'm not a fan of Katie Holmes... even less so after she married Tom Cruise... but dang she looked good in that movie.
Also saw "
Captain America" and was very pleasantly surprised. I really wasn't expecting much from this movie at all, yet it was brilliantly executed, they did a great job of not taking themselves too serious. The storyline worked very well and the action scenes were well scripted and executed. I loved that they went the extra mile to not demonize all Germans, just the Nazis... as well as to make the cast ethnically inclusive, even if that meant blurring reality a little.