demoncleaner
Posts: 2176
Joined: 3/10/2005
From: Belfast
|
Beset with more than just a few noticeable problems it might still be difficult for your inner film theorist to be heard over the whoops and shouts of "FUCK YEAH!!!" from you inner teen. The fact is Rise is an immense amount of fun that panders to the lowest denominator of air punching, anti-hero backing entertainment. The other sure fact is that with a lenghtier running time, more patience, perhaps even more self-importance this could have been so much better. It's still good. It's still a Porsche. But it could have been Rolls Royce. Its essential appeal is that it's basically a hairy Spartacus movie with a satisfying prison set second act and a rollicking sprint for freedom in its third. Its only biggish problem is that it sprints too much. The poignancy promised in the promos relating to the domestic, pre-captivity scenes is here, but the scenes aren't elaborated on from what you've witnessed in the trailer, and so it's like sixty mile an hour poignancy. The pacing is pretty ruthless with the intimate backdrop and this makes James Franco, a highly likeable lead, though essentially a cipher. The unsavoury characters are resolutely two-dimensional with poor dialogue and there's the old conceit of a care home that looks pleasant on the surface but is actually a Turkish prison on the inside. A conceit so old it's pretty much a comedic cliche now, last popping up in Toy Story.
Having said that the cool and infuriating thing about Rise is that being aware of these problems doesn't necessarily block your receptiveness to a great many moments of effuse gratification. Yes, it's all low denominator stuff, but the more you're asked to join with the snarling defiance of the ape race the more bestial your sense of entertainment becomes. Probably.
The CGI gymnastics take some getting use to from the start but when you do, and by that stage have presumably given yourself over to a deliberately stylised form of popcorn movie then the action is thrilling and expertly handled from previous no-budgement director Wyatt. The last act is fantastically breathless fare but I wished it could have been attentuated to milk more of that Spartacus dollar. It's back to running time, but I would have liked to have seen the revolt camp overnight, take their next targets over a couple of days, turning each set-piece into a pitched battle with tactics and cunning and most importantly, a chance for the humans to get a real pervading sense of what is happening. As it stands, it's a bravura break for freedom rather than a full scale revolution. More prequels could have beckoned, staying with this immediate inter-species conflict but a parallel subplot neatly erases that potential and puts us right up to where the first movie started it all.
Low on subtlety and grand ideas, it makes up for it in endorphins. Now imagine if the endorphins took over the world!
4/5
< Message edited by demoncleaner -- 11/8/2011 11:18:24 PM >
_____________________________
"I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit."
|
Printable Version
I know already son - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread