Shameless Self Expression

Medical researcher James Franco is working on a hopeful cure for Alzheimer’s, using an experimental drug on apes, who apparently get a boost in intelligence from the drug. Unfortunately, one of the apes escapes its cage and goes wild, pretty much putting the kybosh on further funding. All of the apes are to be put down, but Franco manages to sneak out the baby of the super-intelligent ape who caused the ruckus, and raises it himself, naming him Caesar (Andy Serkis through CGI and motion capture). He also performs unsanctioned experiments with the drug on his own Alzheimer’s-afflicted father (John Lithgow), who initially shows a remarkable recovery. Unfortunately, over time Caesar has grown too big and too wild, and an unfortunate incident with one of the neighbours sees him taken away by animal control and locked up by gruff Brian Cox. Tom Felton plays a cage cleaner there who likes to pick on the apes, especially Caesar. But Caesar is no ordinary ape (nor was his namesake in “Conquest

Stephen Tyrone Williams is Dr. Hess Greene, an anthropologist and lover of African art. One night, Dr. Greene’s bizarro new assistant Lafayette Hightower (Elvis Nolasco) stabs the doctor with an ancient African dagger and then kills himself. It doesn’t kill Dr. Greene, however. Well, not exactly. Instead, once Dr. Greene awakens afterwards, he realises he’s actually undead. He’s been turned into a bloodthirsty vampire. Soon after this, Dr. Greene meets the lovely Ganja (Zaraah Abrahams) and the two fall in love. But then she discovers the doctor’s secret. Rami Malek plays manservant Higginbottom, whilst veteran character actor Stephen Henderson turns up briefly.   I try. I really try, guys. I so want to be a Spike Lee fan like the rest of you. It sucks being the odd person out. I loved “Malcolm X” despite the distracting role filmmaker Lee unnecessarily gave for himself. “Inside Man” was Lee’s least pretentious, most straightforwardly entertaining film to date. I liked that one