With Your Highness and his Oscar hosting gig big flops, it’s good that James Franco is getting back to the quality dramatic work that has separated him from the other Judd Apatow-born goofballs. In the trailer for this summer’s Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, James plays a serious doctor who’s discovered a serious drug that allows “the brain to repair itself,” with his serious pronouncement “we call it…the cure” followed by one of those dramatic foghorn whomps from the Inception trailer. Though fellow Danny Boyle vet Freida Pinto is worried, James tells her the drug “has the potential to change lives” (whomp) and goes on to “the next phase” (whomp). Unfortunately, the drug makes all the test apes smart, and “our greatest discovery” becomes “our greatest threat.” Whomp.
So far the reaction from fans has been “yeah, but we’ve got guns,” so hopefully there’s some explanation in the film why we can’t just shoot all these damn dirty apes before they take over the Earth and ruin things for Charlton Heston. Either way, if there’s more awesome The Birds-style shots of apes patiently waiting to crush some human like in the trailer, this should be a lot of fun even if serious James Franco is serious throughout.
