One day I will once again write a review of a film that I ddin’t enjoy, one that was rubbish, pointless and completely unmoving, but or now, I’ll just carry on with the ones that moved me and remoinded me what “Cinema” is all about.
Off to a sedate and almost (oh so almost) slow start, ROTPOTA soon developed into a character drama, one in which you could see the heart rending denouement loomig large like an elephant in the corner and there is. Nothing. You. Can. Do. About it. Revealing whether your inner fears are realised or not is not a responsibility that I am going to shoulder, suffice to say the quality of the film as a whole compensates for any heart string tugging that goes on.
And the film itself is superb, though at times the pace varies dramatically the central premise though unbelievable, is acceptable and the sheer quality of the acting, drives everything forward, Franco is good, Cox is good, Felton is so subtle he is excellent and Andy Sirkis is simply outstanding, a class of his own, not necessarily above the rest, but simply staggering in his own right. Subtle nuances and inflections mean everything when you potray a character with limited communication (just ask John Hurt a la “Elephant Man”), but Sirkis seems to have that particular market sewn up.
There is an element of sweeping flare with the direction on this film. It adds to the drama and the tension, but in no way takes your eye off the ball. Some recent releases have suffered with the amount of directorial panache they have injected, but here the balance is just right. With regard to the set pieces, you could tick them off as with any prequel/reboot/action flick, but here there is an edge, a frisson of originality throughout. The showdown on the Golden Gate bridge has been done a dozen times before but never like this, the escape from the compound is nothing new, but the build up is tremendous, and the heartbreak of letting go of the thing you love the most is possibly the oldest story of them all, but it’s never been told this way.
The final third of the film was nigh on perfect. There was a sense of humanity, with the apes displaying compassion, self sacrifice, bitterness and hate. An understanding of all things, an understanding, full stop. And prefacing it all, at the heart of the film is one of those moments for me which define cinema. Every now and then there is a scene which is breathtaking. You watch, you are engrossed, you are utterly absorbed, and then you realise you have stopped breathing. The scene sparks, and it illicits from you, a primal reaction, something you couldn’t stop if you wanted to, if your life depended on it, you react from your very core. And here we have one such screen. My immediate reaction was that I had just witnessed a turning point in cinema history, then I relaised that it was not that serious, just a turning point in actual history, in evolution. Then I realised that I was actually just watching a film but that in it a corner had been turned and a path followed that could never be retrodden. But for those few seconds, I was carried away I was in another world and I was a witness. That is what cinema is all about.
Not without its faults, ROTPOTA is none the less great entertainment and one of the better Summer blockbusters of recent years. Original yet with a responsibility to what has gone before, the ending was such that it was a cracking stand alone movie, an excellent precursor to those that had gone before it or it had set the scene for future incarnations.
No comments:
Post a Comment