dvd of the week
If your jaw dropped at how realistic, how life-like and creepy Gollum was when you first saw him in The Fellowship of the Ring ten years ago, it will fall open again and your mouth will dry out when you see Caesar, the super smart chimpanzee at the center of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. In this surprisingly good prequel to Planet of the Apes, I was thrilled when the humans (James Franco and Freida Pinto) were off-screen, because Caesar and his fellow apes, communicating almost entirely in grunts and body language, starred in scenes as fascinating, entertaining, suspenseful and action-packed as the human scenes were dreary. By the end, as Caesar and his pals are marauding through San Francisco, you cheer for their dominance. These computer-generated apes just seem so much more alive.
