AFS Cinema
Did Movie Critics Hate the Prequel Before It Was Even Made?
RECEIVED Fri., Aug. 12, 2011
Dear Editor,
I saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes the weekend before the Chronicle review was published [Film Listings, Aug. 12]. I rated the movie 2.5 stars, partly because I did not care for the impossibly sappy ending. The beginning and middle worked well. My main problem with it is James Franco. In the last movie I saw him, Your Highness, his job should have been the straight man for the comedian playing his brother (Danny McBride), rather than acting as if he was in on the joke. I heard from a co-worker/film buff that Franco had given interviews to the effect that Apes was beneath the stature of an actor of his caliber. Marc Savlov writes that this incarnation of Planet of the Apes was bereft of the humor of the original. That is plainly wrong; there are plenty of laughs in this version. I don’t think Savlov is being disingenuous, just that he approached it from the standpoint of every movie critic who hated the prequel before it was made. Shallow though it may be, I was hoping that Franco would have a rear nude scene, in homage to Heston’s in the original – not in a sex scene (or bondage scene like Heston’s), but in the time-honored tradition of he-got-caught-with-his-pants-down humor. In keeping with other reviews I’ve seen, the audience at the screening I attended was rooting for the apes in the battle scenes; the neighbor was such a psycho, representing human behavior, that one wondered if we might all deserve to go extinct. I would warn that those sensitive to scenes of animal cruelty may be uncomfortable during some of the action.
I saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes the weekend before the Chronicle review was published [Film Listings, Aug. 12]. I rated the movie 2.5 stars, partly because I did not care for the impossibly sappy ending. The beginning and middle worked well. My main problem with it is James Franco. In the last movie I saw him, Your Highness, his job should have been the straight man for the comedian playing his brother (Danny McBride), rather than acting as if he was in on the joke. I heard from a co-worker/film buff that Franco had given interviews to the effect that Apes was beneath the stature of an actor of his caliber. Marc Savlov writes that this incarnation of Planet of the Apes was bereft of the humor of the original. That is plainly wrong; there are plenty of laughs in this version. I don’t think Savlov is being disingenuous, just that he approached it from the standpoint of every movie critic who hated the prequel before it was made. Shallow though it may be, I was hoping that Franco would have a rear nude scene, in homage to Heston’s in the original – not in a sex scene (or bondage scene like Heston’s), but in the time-honored tradition of he-got-caught-with-his-pants-down humor. In keeping with other reviews I’ve seen, the audience at the screening I attended was rooting for the apes in the battle scenes; the neighbor was such a psycho, representing human behavior, that one wondered if we might all deserve to go extinct. I would warn that those sensitive to scenes of animal cruelty may be uncomfortable during some of the action.
Kenney Kennedy
P.S. P.S. I'd love it if Louis Black stuck to writing only about film and music, as he suggests in his latest column [“Page Two,” Aug. 12].