"Rise of the Planet of the Apes"

Director: Rupert Wyatt
A terrific summer movie: clever, witty, surprisingly moving, with a great performance by Andy Serkis as Caesar, the brilliant chimp who snaps the evolutionary chain. Serkis, of course, doesn't appear in the traditional sense, but without him Caesar would not have been the film's most compelling character (the humans don't fare as well, simply because they are at best two-dimensional, although James Franco and John Lithgow do the best they can in underwritten roles). This is the best use of CGI I've seen, from the apes themselves to their rampage through San Francisco to a face-off with cops on the Golden Gate Bridge. And Serkis deserves serious consideration for an Oscar nomination.