JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

is about an ape. Doesn’t seem like much of a compliment, but please take it. In a season clogged with superheroes, we pick the chimpanzee Caesar.

And the best performer of blockbuster season isn’t even onscreen. It’s Andy Serkis, who honed his motion-capture skills as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, as Caesar the super-smart ape. When Caesar goes to the redwoods for the first time we feel his exhilaration. Freedom! Then his confusion: Am I a pet?

Excellent job by director Rupert Wyatt, cinematographer Andrew Lesnie, the visual effects army of Weta, and the stuntmen.

Like all the recent superhero movies, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an origins story: Planet of the Apes from the POV of the apes. We don’t know anyone in the audience who was rooting for the humans. Although James Franco as Caesar’s daddy is lovely, even more adorable than when his arm was wedged between rocks.

Franco’s scientist is the latest in a long line of smart characters doing stupid things, but writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver show how his research methods have been short-circuited by emotional attachments.

This is a movie makes you want to cry, “Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty human!” (They kept the original line in, by the way. The timing of the movie is interesting: a friend just pointed out that London (Tottenham) is burning and New York (the financial market) is sinking.)

Here’s the Planet of the Apes musical from The Simpsons, featuring the priceless lyric: “I hate every ape I see/From Chimpan-A to Chimpan-Zee. . .”