8/5 Viewing Journal (reviews of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," "Batman Begins," and "The Dark Knight")

After the sluggish likes of Captain America and Cowboys & Aliens, it's a welcome change of pace to encounter a summer action blockbuster that moves with as much swift forward momentum and storytelling economy as Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011, Rupert Wyatt). This is definitely a case where a movie's unfortunate, unwieldy title thankfully does not serve as a reflection of the decidedly light-footed movie in question.

And director Wyatt, whose previous experience helming the British prison movie The Escapist makes him an inspired choice for the proceedings (there's a certain point around the halfway mark where Apes evolves into a prison movie of an unconventional sort), finds all sorts of creative ways to accentuate movement and pace, from his furious cross-cutting between scientist Will Rodman's (James Franco) pitch to his superiors for human trials on an Alzheimer's cure and the movie's first action scene (Bright Eyes' rampage) to the way his camera swirls and flies around to keep up with agile chimp Caesar (played by Andy Serkis in a motion-capture performance).

But, as anyone who's had the pleasure of meeting Caesar knows, Rise isn't just an empty display of kinetics. Franco and John Lithgow form an affecting bond as Will and his Alzheimer's-afflicted father, and Caesar's simultaneously rousing and tragic, well, rise makes for one of the summer's best and most fascinating character arcs. As Caesar, Serkis is wonderfully nuanced, though talk of an outside-of-the-box Best Supporting Actor nomination for his work here is a case of stretching well-deserved praise a little too hyperbolically far. (I don't have any problem with vocal and/or motion-capture performances being nominated though, and I personally would've nominated Ellen DeGeneres in Finding Nemo, Ed Asner in Up, and, more to the point, Zoe Saldana in Avatar in their respective years of consideration.)

A handful of clumsy performances and individual scenes keep Rise from approaching popcorn-movie greatness (for that, keep reading this very post!). Tom Felton, best known as Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, is just terrible as one of the chief villains, offering a hilariously mangled approximation of an American accent. Out of his marble mouth, the word "good" takes on an extra syllable (seriously, he adds a "y" in there somewhere). And a scene in which he and a group of buddies, apparently soused out of their minds after drinking a six-pack of Mirror Pond Pale Ale (!), abuse a group of caged chimps is too ineptly acted and staged to summon the intended outrage.

However, that's not to say the movie doesn't tremble with deeply felt outrage elsewhere. Suffice it to say, if you only see one film this summer that positions chimp abuse as a metaphor for the darker side of human nature, see Project Nim, but if Roadside Attractions' catastrophic (excuse for a) release of Nim kept it from playing in your city, by all means, see Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Grade: B+

I remember shortly before the release of Batman Begins (2005, Christopher Nolan) (eigth viewing, fifth on the big screen), writer-director Nolan cited epic maestro David Lean as a primary influence on his superhero origin story. I can pinpoint the exact moment in his film when that lofty comparison begins to make absolute sense: Bruce Wayne, after being trained to conquer his fear by dubious mentors the League of Shadows, returns to an underground cave where his phobia of bats first manifested itself. As an enormous swarm of bats begin to surround Bruce, who is scarcely less sick-in-the-head than Lean anti-heroes T.E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia) and Col. Nicholson (Alec Guinness in The Bridge on the River Kwai), he boldly stands still and allows the swarm to flutter against him. Nolan cuts to wider and wider shots of the bat-filled tableau, and the Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard score reaches its most operatic crescendo. To DC fanboys, this plays as "the birth of the Batcave," but for me, as with Lean's epics, the grandeur of the filmmaking and how it reflects the neurotic brand of heroism represented by the protagonist overwhelms rudimentary plot concerns.

And this repeat viewing reminds me of something else silly about certain fanboys: many complained that Begins' biggest shortcoming lay in the villains department, but that's ridiculously not the case. Cillian Murphy's deliciously off-kilter verbal cadences underline the Scarecrow's malevolent nerdiness, Tom Wilkinson's intentionally broad American accent (take that, Draco!) adds color to his mobster, and Liam Neeson's silky authority as a League of Shadows figurehead nicely compensates for some unfortunate facial hair. They're all terrific, though I wouldn't make a case for any of them giving the single best performance ever featured in a comic-book adaptation. Grade: A

I would, on the other hand, make a case for Heath Ledger giving the single best performance ever featured in a comic-book adaptation, in Begins follow-up The Dark Knight (2008, Christopher Nolan) (umpteenth viewing, fifth or sixth on the big screen). Also, his performance is one of the few in film history to approximate the thrilling rush of unpredictability more typically inherent to live theatre. There's much more to say about both his performance and the film itself, which I hope to get to in a later blog post. I'm not going in-depth now not just because I've fallen behind in blogging, but also because a proper tribute to Ledger's monumental performance would be both creatively rewarding and emotionally draining to write.

The film itself stands as the most queasily unrelenting popcorn movie ever unleashed on a surprised (but also, clearly thrilled) public. (See: my comment in my Bellflower review on moviegoer masochism.) It just does not stop until your last nerve is fried to jelly.

Its final couple minutes manage to trump Begins' batcave intro when it comes to delivering Lean-esque warped grandeur; it's honestly hard for me to breathe during the conclusion. Batman/Bruce makes a final choice that cements his status as the most simultaneously noble and clinically insane of all superheroes, while amped-up cross-cutting and Gordon's monologue (how good is Gary Oldman in this, by the way?) accompany him carrying out that selfless/nutsoid choice. Then, bam, the closing-credits title card smacks you upside the head. Then, finally, you exhale. Perfect. So perfect that I almost believe Nolan should've ended the series with it, but like anyone else, I'm counting the days until the July 2012 relase of The Dark Knight Rises. Grade: A

[Note: It seems to be an unspoken rule in the critical community never to use the "A+," and since I am but a freelancer, I won't challenge the orthodoxy. But I believe The Dark Knight would be fully and genuinely deserving of that grade.]