Rise of the Planet of the Apes

James Franco looks more bored and distracted in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" than he did when he was hosting the Oscars: Watching the movie, I kept waiting for him to pull out his iPhone, aim it at the camera and take a snapshot while mugging sheepishly.

Has there ever been a film with a less engaged protagonist? Claude Rains made more of an impact in 1933's "The Invisible Man," and you couldn't even see him. In "Apes," the vibrant and charismatic Franco, who carried the whole of "127 Hours" practically by himself, has the look of someone fulfilling a contract - the look of someone who realizes what he's gotten into and just wants to get it over with.

That's the same effect "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" has on the viewer. You can't wait for the film to get past its endless set-up and exposition and get to the fun stuff. But the wait is long.

This prequel to the 1968 sci-fi classic explains exactly how Earth came to be overrun by hyper-intelligent apes while the human population died out. The idea is genius - what a creative way to relaunch a dormant franchise! - but the execution is something else entirely.

Promises Of An Entourage Movie Heat Up As The Final Season Begins

In the grand history of "movie adaptations of TV shows that will probably never happen but the people involved keep talking up anyway," Entourage isn't the worst offender. Yes, it's been rumored on and off since around 2007, and as recently aslast December executive producer Mark Wahlberg was talking it up as a possibility, but it hasn't come up nearly as often as, say, the Arrested Development or Party Down movies, maybe because there are fewer hopeful journalists who actually want it to happen. 

But with the final season of Entourage now airing on HBO, the movie rumors are flying faster than ever, and have moved up to the person who actually has the power to make it happen, namely creator and executive producer Doug Ellin. During the TCA press tour, that week where the creators of every show gather with every television critic in the country to be barraged with questions, both Wahlberg and Ellin sounded very confident about the possibility of a movie. "If I had to finance it myself, I would do it," Wahlberg said-- and that's no empty promise, considering he could probably actually do that.