Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a nice surprise, going against the trend of tepid Hollywood franchise-milking by not sucking. Early marketing materials braced me for something forgettable - even terrible - but it turns out that it’s actually a good movie, justifying its existence beyond a mere cash-grab with an emotionally stirring storyline, rousing action scenes and a sympathetic, convincingly developed chimp protagonist (Andy Serkis, doing another motion-capture-assisted marvel of a performance) whose expressiveness and personality trumps James Franco’s vanilla scientist lead. WETA’s wizardry here (best life-like CG apes yet) makes the original Planet of the Apes look even more primitive today, and though Rupert Wyatt’s film won’t go down as a classic - it doesn’t quite match the original’s lingering impact - it’s a tight, tidy little package, with familiar-but-still-trenchant ideas and a narrative that builds organically rather than bombarding the viewer constantly with gratuitous action. Everything is in service of the story, making the all-hell-breaks-loose finale all the more thrilling and heart-rending.