Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Directed by Rupert Wyatt. Starring James Franco, Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Cox, Tom Felton 105mins, gen release

ALAS, THE title Stop the Planet of the Apes, I Want to Get Offwas already taken. But who knew that a film with such a clumsy title could be such a sleek, exhilarating entertainment? Director Rupert Wyatt, the young hotshot behind The Escapist, brings an unexpected vigour and pace to a prequel that, coming after Tim Burton's untidy 2001 retooling, puts simian fiction right back on the map.

In a time before Charlton Heston, Will Rodman (James Franco) is a young scientist on a mission to cure dad John Lithgow from Alzheimer’s. To this end he tests a genetically engineered virus on chimpanzees, one of whom goes bananas (sorry), gets shot and leaves behind a baby with the retrovirus already mutating in his body.

Will’s father calls the new arrival Caesar, and the chimp is duly raised as part of the family. The infected and greatly cherished Caesar, as embodied by Andy Serkis, is a good deal smarter than the average ape.

But when he sees Grandpa Lithgow in an altercation with a short-tempered neighbour, instinct kicks in.

Unhappily, the chimpanzee is carted off to a brutal primate facility just as Will’s retrovirus starts yielding unintended and potentially devastating side effects.

This familiar sci-fi set-up is greatly enhanced by the summer’s heftiest ratio of visceral thrills and spills, real live actors, and, most of all, by Andy Serkis. When Caesar throws himself despairingly against his cell wall, even Robert De Niro’s similarly confined Jake LaMotta might weep.