I must start off by noting that as of today, I have not seen all of the prior films, so I cannot speak to this film's place in the total mythology of the Planet of the Apes. As a standalone, this movie succeeds such much so that if you never seen any of the previous films, you can still really enjoy this. This is great example of science fiction in which a good or noble "idea" goes horribly wrong.
Will Rodman (James Franco) plays a scientist conducting studies in biotechnology to develop a cure for Alzheimer's disease, as it is soon revealed his dad, Charles (John Lithgow) suffers from it. Some chimps who are being used a test subjects are to responding to the drug Will is working on, appearing to even reach human levels of intelligence, until a female chimp goes on a rampage killing several people. Will's boss orders all the chimps destroyed and for Will to "start over" with his drug and testing. Will discovers that the female chimp was not reacting to the drug, but instead maternally protecting her newborn chimp, which was hidden away from Will and his team. Will decides to adopt the baby chimp and names him Caesar, meanwhile Will continues his work on the drug "in secret". Caesar quickly develops high intelligence, like his mother, as it seems it was passed to him genetically.
Charles' mental functions begin to slip, so Will makes the decision to give his father the drug, which improves him, but only temporarily. Caesar meanwhile seems to be caught between the world of humans with his brain functions, and the world of animals with his primal instincts. This changes for the latter as one afternoon Charles whose state has deteriorated again, gets into the neighbor's running car and wrecks it, attempting to drive away. The neighbor, confronting a confused Charles, is then attacked by Caesar who was attempting to defend his "family". Caesar, as punishment by the authorities, is ordered to now live at a primate shelter. Realizing he is not part of the human world, Caesar decides to bring all the rest of the primates at the shelter under his leadership to revolt against their captivity.
The story is good, the acting is very good, and the special effects really make this an entertaining film to watch.
Interesting fact: Caesar is "portryed" by Andy Serkis, digitally, who also brought to life the character Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
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