When Charlton Heston stumbled up the truth of his nightmare entrapment on a world overrun by “damn dirty apes” in the revelatory form of the ruins of the Statue of Liberty, he never probably thought that the war for human-primate supremacy began with seemingly innocuous genetic experiments, but he’d be wrong. Rise of the Planet of the Apes tooks us to the origins of this story in present day San Francisco last summer, and the blockbuster film is available now on DVD and Blu-ray. A group of scientists accidentally engineer a chimpanzee who is a little too smart for their own good in this new installment of the long-running franchise. After the escape of Caesar, an intelligent chimp voiced and animated by The Lord of the Rings’ Andy Serkis, a war between monkeys and humans ensues. James Franco, John Lithgow and Frieda Pinto co-star. Rated PG-13.
‘Rise’ and shine
