A vast departure from the films that came before it, War ends up being a dramatically lead, strong CGI show piece with an almost nonsensical pacing and tone structure that feels weaker then its predecessors.
While Dawn focused on the intricacies of relations and peace between the humans and the apes, War attempts to weave the horrors and harsh realities of war into it's story line, including deaths on the battlefield, concentration camps and prisoner torture.
Dawn cleverly layers it's story around the human/ape divide. It shows that, even with best intentions, peace talks can break down over the smallest of misunderstandings or motivations/prejudices of individual key players. Even though both sides want peace, the outlandish or misinterpreted actions of certain characters leads to the inevitable conflict shown at the end of the movie.
Conversely, War totally drops the ball on telling a compelling, heavy story from the fronts of battle. This isn't to detract from the movies quality overall. The CGI, as has come to be expected from the franchise, is top notch, to the point of melting away into the background so the characters themselves can shine through. The acting on show here is also top notch, with every character feeling grounded, authentic and with an overarching level of depth. Andy Serkis should definitely be considered for some form of award for this portrayal of Caesar. And I still heavily praise the franchise for not shying away from using sign language between the apes as their main form of communication. I'm sure there were many pressures from external producers who just wanted all the apes to talk by now.
My two main problems with the movie are it's pace and tone.
To begin with pace, never does the movie feel like it's attempting to move forward at any reasonable speed, rather preferring to hang on the moment and attempt to rouse an emotional response from the viewer in every scene. This really becomes evident at around the midway point, where we spend a good 20 - 30 minutes having touching moments between all the characters while we are on the way to the concentration camp. I understand the need for character building, and I'm not saying that it should be removed from the movie entirely, but surely there is a more succinct way of doing this while maintaining the feeling of momentum of moving towards an end goal? To make it feel snappy rather then long held shots on each character?
And finally my main problem with the movie; it's tone. Never does War feel like a complete work from start to finish, but rather a mosaic of half thought ideas that have been thrown together and feel almost entirely different when played together. My main point of reference here is interjecting a horrific scene of Caesar being tortured inside Harrelsons concentration camp, just to be pulled away to a short comedy skit with Bad Ape holding the binoculars the wrong way round. Then, immediately thrusting us back into the grim realities of the concentration camp. It just feels misplaced, ill advised and immersion breaking.
While I didn't hate my time with War, it definitely didn't hit me as well as Dawn did. Dawn was a perfect handling of the formula, while War feels like a lengthy, drawn out unnecessary conclusion to Caesars story. I just hope that we get a return to form if the franchise follows Cornelius' arc next.
Review by XiofireBlockedParent2017-07-29T14:53:12Z
A vast departure from the films that came before it, War ends up being a dramatically lead, strong CGI show piece with an almost nonsensical pacing and tone structure that feels weaker then its predecessors.
While Dawn focused on the intricacies of relations and peace between the humans and the apes, War attempts to weave the horrors and harsh realities of war into it's story line, including deaths on the battlefield, concentration camps and prisoner torture.
Dawn cleverly layers it's story around the human/ape divide. It shows that, even with best intentions, peace talks can break down over the smallest of misunderstandings or motivations/prejudices of individual key players. Even though both sides want peace, the outlandish or misinterpreted actions of certain characters leads to the inevitable conflict shown at the end of the movie.
Conversely, War totally drops the ball on telling a compelling, heavy story from the fronts of battle. This isn't to detract from the movies quality overall. The CGI, as has come to be expected from the franchise, is top notch, to the point of melting away into the background so the characters themselves can shine through. The acting on show here is also top notch, with every character feeling grounded, authentic and with an overarching level of depth. Andy Serkis should definitely be considered for some form of award for this portrayal of Caesar. And I still heavily praise the franchise for not shying away from using sign language between the apes as their main form of communication. I'm sure there were many pressures from external producers who just wanted all the apes to talk by now.
My two main problems with the movie are it's pace and tone.
To begin with pace, never does the movie feel like it's attempting to move forward at any reasonable speed, rather preferring to hang on the moment and attempt to rouse an emotional response from the viewer in every scene. This really becomes evident at around the midway point, where we spend a good 20 - 30 minutes having touching moments between all the characters while we are on the way to the concentration camp. I understand the need for character building, and I'm not saying that it should be removed from the movie entirely, but surely there is a more succinct way of doing this while maintaining the feeling of momentum of moving towards an end goal? To make it feel snappy rather then long held shots on each character?
And finally my main problem with the movie; it's tone. Never does War feel like a complete work from start to finish, but rather a mosaic of half thought ideas that have been thrown together and feel almost entirely different when played together. My main point of reference here is interjecting a horrific scene of Caesar being tortured inside Harrelsons concentration camp, just to be pulled away to a short comedy skit with Bad Ape holding the binoculars the wrong way round. Then, immediately thrusting us back into the grim realities of the concentration camp. It just feels misplaced, ill advised and immersion breaking.
While I didn't hate my time with War, it definitely didn't hit me as well as Dawn did. Dawn was a perfect handling of the formula, while War feels like a lengthy, drawn out unnecessary conclusion to Caesars story. I just hope that we get a return to form if the franchise follows Cornelius' arc next.