Uncanny Antman said:
At the end of the day though, CG is like every other cinematic tool: It's not the tech, it's the talent.
Absolutely. The one part of this that makes me think it
might have beyond-standard potential is that Caesar is apparently being performed by the guy who is undoubtedly the world's leading expert on using the technology for motion-captured performance, Andy Serkis.
It doesn't hurt that he's a hell of an actor, to boot. Some people may know him outside of his motion-capture performances from 24 Hour Party People or Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll, or possibly as the cook in King Kong, but I actually first saw him in the title role of The Rover, a recorded production of a 17th Century play by Aphra Behn, the first professional female writer in English. He starred with then-also-unknown Dougray Scott and Daniel Craig, and he far outshone both of them.
Part of what made the original POTA work was that they got very expressive actors with extensive stage backgrounds to do the apes, so that they could emote through the latex (Roddy Macdowell, Kim Hunter, and Sir Maurice Evans were all Shakespearean veterans, for example). Serkis definitely has the chops, and he too is a stage veteran.
The problem with CGI v. practical latex effects, as far as I'm concerned, is that there's an added layer of mediation between the actor and the character as the animators translate the performance to the character. They're working on that, as in the upcoming videogame L.A. Noire, which appears to be almost entirely actor-driven. I hope that enough of Serkis can come through in the CGI ape to make the performance memorable, as of course Gollum/Smeagol was (wow) ten years ago now...