About seventy minutes into Tim Burton’s remake of The Planet of the Apes (2001), I remember realizing that I was witnessing the death of the franchise. Sure, it was a film that needed to be made. At a time in our history where half of each summer’s biggest films are some kind of remake, Hollywood had to have been itching to cash in on the success of a franchise that was huge thirty years ago. They made their money, I wasted mine and everyone seemed ready to face a future free of ape movies.

So when I saw the trailer for “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” I was deeply confused. For all I knew, the franchise was at peace in its grave, the Mark Wahlberg version had been discarded and forgotten and Hollywood had moved on. I barely had time to roll my eyes before I saw that James Franco had the leading role. And that the apes didn’t seem to spout off excessive dialogue. And, apart from the title, it appeared to be a solid action movie capable of a few surprises—one that happened to involve monkeys.

The plot doesn’t really offer anything we haven’t seen before. It follows the formula where a well-intentioned doctor develops a potentially revolutionary medicine, tests it out on monkeys, and, after a period of initial promise, witnesses everything go wrong. James Franco is effective as said doctor, bringing some humanity to a role that would appear restricting and uninspired on paper. You can’t have an ape movie without a love interest, apparently, so Slumdog Millionaire’s Freida Pinto fills in. Unfortunately, the film passes on her acting talents and just requires her to look pretty. The real stars here are director Rupert Wyatt, whose use of subtle camera tricks in claustrophobic environments mixes brilliantly with his expansive camera work in action sequences, and Andy Serkis, who brings more life to the lead CGI monkey than any of the other actors bring to their human roles.

The film has its flaws, but none of them are beyond redemption. Some characters are walking clichés, there are a few questionable plot devices and I found the first half hour to be like a live-action episode of Curious George. The only surprise is that I ended up really enjoying this movie. It moves at a fast pace, makes fantastic use of CGI, and the scenes in the “monkey jail” are among the most suspenseful I’ve seen in theaters this year. I initially thought this would be an embarrassing resurrection of a premise best left in its coffin, but it come across more like a beloved franchise peeking its head out for a breath of fresh air.