Nordling here.
This is not a review of RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. That comes Friday. If you must have a taste of a review, let's just say that if you followed my Twitter feed you'd have some idea of what I was thinking when I came out of the screening yesterday. I think many reviewers felt the same way, judging from their feeds. It's going to be an interesting Friday, reading the reactions. I can't wait.
What I will say that seems to be beyond dispute is that Caesar is another amazing performance by Andy Serkis, and there's talk around the entertainment press that this may be the role that gets him a Best Supporting Actor nod. There was talk of it for Gollum back in 2002 and 2003, and even some for KING KONG in 2005. With Caesar, Serkis has done something amazing. Every thought that crosses Caesar's mind is evident in the performance, and all without dialogue. The way he moves his eyes, analyzing things, or how Caesar responds to people, whether it's a kindly old man stricken with Alzheimer's, or a brutal animal keeper, or even another chimp in a battle for dominance - it's a multi-leveled, full-on performance, and the only reason people are talking Best Supporting Actor is simple semantics - he'd never get nominated for Best Actor, not in today's day and age, not yet, even though Caesar is very much the main character of the film.
Tell you what, if I could vote for Andy Serkis in the Academy, he'd have it. It's easily the best performance of the summer, and I think come Friday you'll hear quite a few people talking about it. But is it Andy Serkis, or WETA, or a mix of the two? I think WETA worked with something that was already there. Just look at the performance of Serkis in this RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES clip, sans effects-work, and tell me he's not putting his all into that character:
I can't wait to see RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES again. And again. I went in not knowing what to expect, and... well. Hopefully you'll see for yourself Friday. But if nothing else, expect some serious Oscar talk for Serkis, and I wouldn't write it off this time. It's been talked about before for Andy Serkis, but this time? This time, I think he may very well get the nomination.
Nordling, out.
