1. Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
Why The Franchise Failed: Abominable script and a weird ending.
How It Re-Succeeded: Absolutely nailing a prequel, astonishing mo-cap. Before Rise came along, the last memory we all had of the Apes franchise was Mark Wahlberg kissing an ape-ified Helena Bonham Carter, which easily goes down as one of the more disturbing things Tommy Wiseau aside I've had to witness in my film-watching life. Yet even if we take out that astonishingly disturbing scene, Tim Burton's attempted reboot did make a hash of things. The script was leaden, Mark Wahlberg proved to be an unsuitable leading man and the ending was so goddamned bonkers that it may have killed any attempted phoenix franchise by itself. So when the time came for Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, we were all reticent. While Rick Baker's prosthetic designs for the earlier effort were excellent, the whole humanoid-ape thing was starting to look somewhat dated. Then we learnt that mo-cap was being used, and medium wizard Andy Serkis had signed on to play Caesar, we were all excited again. Needless to say, the guy rocked it in the part, earning unheard-of calls for an Oscar nomination and shocking you into silence in one incredible scene.Yet Rise was so much more than Serkis/Caesar the script was sharp, James Franco pulled off the central human part with ease, the ape battles were phenomenal and we got to see Draco Malfoy get immolated. Everyone loved it, and now we get to see Gary Oldman in the similarly wordy sequel, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes. So if it got critical acclaim and resurrected a franchise, what more can you really ask for, aside from a Troy McClure-style musical? Nothing, that's what. So that's what I think. What do you think? Feel free to comment!