Scientist Will Rodman (James Franco) is working on a revolutionary cure for Alzheimer's, testing his serum on chimps. When one of his test subjects escapes, causing considerable damage during an important board meeting, the project is cancelled and the apes terminated—with the exception of newborn baby chimp Caesar, who Will smuggles out of the lab, raising the animal in his own home. As Caesar grows up, he displays remarkable intelligence, but after the chimp attacks Will's neighbour, the belligerent beast finds himself thrown into an animal control centre. Mistreated by the keepers, Caesar comes to resent humans and leads his fellow simians in a revolt against mankind.

Film-makers can do amazing things with CGI these days: create far-flung worlds, construct incredible cities, build spaceships, give birth to fantastical monsters. But the one thing they haven't managed to date is to create a totally convincing computer-generated human being. Since humans and chimps share 95% or more similar DNA, it's not all that surprising that any small imperfections in this movie's digital apes are glaringly obvious. The effects are good, but not good enough for one to believe in and emotionally engage with the animals. This might sound like I'm nitpicking, but the success of this film depends heavily on the realism of the effects; they need to be perfect, and they're not.

Sadly, the CGI isn't my only issue with this attempt at rebooting the Apes franchise: the plot takes an awful long time to get interesting, and with such a bland lead as James Franco, this makes for a rather tedious movie experience. By the time it all kicks off between apes and humans on a fog-shrouded Golden Gate Bridge, it's simply too late—the damage has already been done.

5.5 out of 10, rounded down to 5 for the numerous times that chimps leap through plate glass windows with nary a scratch (where, in reality, they would be sliced to ribbons).