Despite what the rest of America may be feeling, I am still a card-carrying member of the James Franco Fan Club. I chose his performance in 127 Hours as my personal choice for the Best Actor Oscar. Even so, this doesn’t change the fact that he’s slowly been testing our patience. His gig hosting the Oscars was admittedly terrible, and Your Highness deservedly bombed both critically and commercially. Whether it’s justified or not, the movie-going public seems to be turning its back on our dear friend Mr. Franco. The latest example of Franco backlash comes in the form of the trailer for this summer’s horribly-titled Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Observe:
This trailer is—for lack of a better word—lame. If it has one moment that’s legitimately cool, it’s the final shot of the ponderous ape. The rest of the preview alternates between silly, robotic and bland. Most surprisingly of all is a performance by Franco that seems rather off. Over the course of his film and television work, Franco has been many things. He’s never been “bad.” This trailer gives him maybe 30 seconds of screen time. I can safely say his performance in those 30 seconds is the weakest of his career.
Most of the problem is that he isn’t the most convincing scientist in the world. That’s not to say Franco isn’t smart—his education would seem to disprove that theory—it’s just that he’s not normally one to stand in front of a group of scientists and describe whatever “the cure” is. The main problem is that this character doesn’t seem to be interesting enough. Think of the best James Franco performances (Daniel Desario in Freaks and Geeks, Saul in Pineapple Express, Aron Ralston in 127 Hours, Sean Penn’s boyfriend in Milk) and notice how they all have something interesting or weird about them. In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, his character’s name appears to be Dr. Exposition… whose girlfriend is Freida Pinto from Slumdog Millionaire.
There’s another reason this trailer seems to be getting a lot of flak, and it is this:
This is the first trailer (to my knowledge) that exclusively advertises a film’s special effects company. Not a frame is dedicated to the film’s director, producers, writers or stars. Instead, we get the dudes at the computers. As much as audiences loved Avatar, I can just about guarantee they don’t care about WETA Digital. As such, the trailer seems to be hiding something. We don’t get a lot of looks into the film itself. Instead we get some Franco time, followed by a few ape shots, then the end. Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad when a trailer refuses to expose all the film’s money shots. It’s just that this trailer refuses to throw us a single bone.
As a trailer, this is a failure. Still, Rise of the Planet of the Apes has the potential to be good. In a way, I kind of hope it’s successful. That way we can get another prequel: Beginning of the Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
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