THE MONKEY MOVIE

For a popcorn flick, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes was surprisingly good. Apart from a few fudge factors, this origin story nicely set up a foundation for the intended reboot of the old film series. And since I was cheering for the chimps and booing at the arrogance and cruelty of modern humans (individually, we're reasonably decent, but oh, as a group, we soooo deserve our fate), the upcoming war between the two species, where humans reap in spades what they have so thoughtlessly sown, should be morally interesting.

Eventually, of course, our apish revolutionaries will go the way of all downtrodden groups that topple one cruel, monolithic power only to become a cruel, monolithic power themselves. Gaining political power is always the ultimate moral makeover, and very few elites are upright enough to resist the joys of tribal bullying. I suspect that once founding father Caesar (well done, Andy Serkis) no longer functions as a moral compass for the monkeys, then the chimps will, excuse the language and the pun, go apeshit.

Ah, the line "Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape" just never gets old.