A-PEek at the Movies

Friday night was date night (yea!) and there was no movie we HAD to see so we just went with our standard movie picking system. It is this: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/ (we say at LEAST 50% but the higher the better) + our time constraints = Movie we will see. It's been a fail safe formula! This time it led us to Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Now, I am already a huge fan of James Franco (1. because of the spider man series and 2. because he looks like Eric's cousin- REALLY!) and I wish I could bring myself to watch 127 hours but I just CAN'T!! Also, I thought John Lithgow and 'the girl' (turns out she is Freida Pinto) were great too.

A surprise was *MINOR spoiler alert* seeing Draco in there (Tom Felton). I hope this doesn't mean poor Tom will only ever play the mean guy. I'd like to see him be a NOT mean guy in a role. If he has please let me know.

Best part of the movie was definitely the special effects combined with the performance of Andy Serkis who you will remember as Gollum (now you have to say 'My Precious' in a freaky whispery voice...go ahead say it with me).

Overall review:

Me- walked out thinking it was a perfect date movie. Emotional story for the girls and special effects for the guys.

Eric- Meh. He said he couldn't put his finger on it because he thought the effects were GREAT (and Eric would know) but he didn't think the movie was great. After we took some more time to think it thru we came up with two reasons this might be. First, the story itself was kind of a mish-mash of pieces of other movies you have seen, nothing REALLY new here and you could probably watch it a second time and start labeling the scenes that were stolen from other movies. Second, I think it suffered from 'Episode 3 syndrome' meaning that the problem is you KNOW how it ends so they can't really go anywhere else besides the inevitable ending and that makes it....well, anti-climatic.

I still say go see it. But, I do think Rotten Tomatoes may have been a bit generous on this one at 83%. ENJOY!

Have you seen this movie? What did you think? Are there any movies with actors you like that you want to watch but because of the story/theme can't bring yourself to?

Photo from here