[6.0/10] The beauty of the previous movies in the new Apes trilogy is that they balanced compelling storytelling with thematic exploration. The story of an ape gaining sentience and leading a revolt, or of a growing conflict between apes and humans, could sustain a film on narrative alone. But Rise and Dawn weren’t content to leave it at that, instead asking questions about identity, humanity, and community, that gave them a greater resonance apart from their speculative fiction fun.
War for the Planet of the Apes, on the other hand, is content to ask the question “What if Rambo was a monkey?”
That’s a little unfair. War has something on its mind as a cinematic experience. It wants to dig a little into the hollowing inescapability of hate. It wants to comment, however shallowly, on the force of parenthood. But for the most part, the last installment in the Apes trilogy is far more interested in its dime-a-dozen revenge quest as it is in saying anything deeper, or using its unique setup to do more.
The film centers on the same group of Apes who’ve assembled through the last two films, still led by Caesar, the patient zero of the simian uprising we met as a baby back in Rise. The ape clan is looking for a home far away from the humans where they’ll be safe, thanks to volatile military incursions from the remaining human soldiers. But before they can pull it off, an ominously named “The Colonel” invades the apes’ compound and kills Caesar’s wife and son.
What follows is a pretty generic story mapped onto a less-than-typical conceit. Caesar swears revenge. He sends the rest of the apes off to find their new homeland while he goes off to avenge his family’s killer. His closest friends won’t leave their side, and it leads a long journey where our heroes make new friends, save their community, and a combination of good fortune and arguably divine intervention allows them to win the day and find their landing spot.
That’s the one useful thematic reference point you can offer for War. As much as the film wants to make Caesar into Rambo, stoically trying to get justice for his fallen loved ones against a barely-sketched enemy, with ample firearms and fighting, it also wants to make him Moses. He suffers for his demand that The Colonel not treat the apes like slaves and instead let his people go. He watches his enemies perish in an avalanche, not unlike the biblical re-merging of the Red Sea that swept up the Egyptian army. And he leads his people to the promised land, but can’t go inside himself.
It’s just a pretty dull trip to get there. War is a film almost completely devoid of momentum. Beyond Caesar’s “I will avenge you” motivation, everything in the movie just sort of happens, whether it’s stumbling onto unlikely allies or conveniently arriving opposing armies. Some of the individual pieces are nice enough: the continuing warmth of Caesar’s friend and right-hand man Maurice, the comic relief of the outsider ape who joins their band, or a quisling Gorilla who eventually sees the light. And while not as striking as in Dawn, there’s visual acuity here, with the contrast between the snowy landscapes that cover most of the film with the lush backdrop that Caesar is framed in at the end being particularly good. But all of these elements feel lumped together rather than part of an organic progression or cohesive whole of the film.
The brightest diamond in the rough of the movie is the performance of Andy Serkis and the film’s team of designers and animators. No CGI characters have ever felt as real, vivid, and part of their environment as the apes, particularly the main characters, feel in this film. There is weight and texture to each of them that makes you empathize with the movie’s simian contingent and feel their pain and compassion. But Caesar is the crowning achievement on that front. Serkis gets to speak much more in this film than in prior ones, and the way his minute expressions are captured, to deliver a nuance layered performance through digital firm is absolutely breathtaking.
It’s too bad the human characters can’t come close to that. Woody Harrelson plays the film’s antagonist, and he pretty much just does Woody Harrelson thing. If you’ve seen him in any other movie recently, you can pretty much port him over as a military guy and not miss much in the execution. The movie tries to contrast and compare his and Caesar’s hardship over the loss of their children, and it shows his extreme method of dealing with an epidemic of humans turning speechless that doesn't serve much purpose beyond trying to account for the nigh-feral humans in the original film. But mostly, War just trots him out, has him Harrelson it up all over the place, and calls it a day, to quickly dwindling results.
The shame of it is that, in 2017, there’s a strong metaphor of people fearing societal change, of Harrelson’s implicit “we will not be erased” message in the face of “savages” rising to prominence. But it’s not even really subtext in War; it’s set dressing. The real show is in Caesar trying to decide whether or not he has enough hate, or could get over his hate, or has to swallow his hate after the loss of his wife and son, and rather than using that fridging to dredge up some meaning, the film is content to let it ride as a bog standard revenge mission.
That could be interesting enough, especially through the lens of sentient chimps finding creative ways to approach their human antagonists. But it’s not enough to sustain a two-hour movie, and it’s a step down from the biggers grasps at profundity this franchise has offered in its previous two outings. War for the Planet of the Apes might be a decent enough, if forgettable, sci-fi/action flick as its own thing. But as the culmination and a climax of a franchise that dug far deeper than “he killed my wife,” it can’t help be a disappointment.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2018-10-11T02:45:40Z
[6.0/10] The beauty of the previous movies in the new Apes trilogy is that they balanced compelling storytelling with thematic exploration. The story of an ape gaining sentience and leading a revolt, or of a growing conflict between apes and humans, could sustain a film on narrative alone. But Rise and Dawn weren’t content to leave it at that, instead asking questions about identity, humanity, and community, that gave them a greater resonance apart from their speculative fiction fun.
War for the Planet of the Apes, on the other hand, is content to ask the question “What if Rambo was a monkey?”
That’s a little unfair. War has something on its mind as a cinematic experience. It wants to dig a little into the hollowing inescapability of hate. It wants to comment, however shallowly, on the force of parenthood. But for the most part, the last installment in the Apes trilogy is far more interested in its dime-a-dozen revenge quest as it is in saying anything deeper, or using its unique setup to do more.
The film centers on the same group of Apes who’ve assembled through the last two films, still led by Caesar, the patient zero of the simian uprising we met as a baby back in Rise. The ape clan is looking for a home far away from the humans where they’ll be safe, thanks to volatile military incursions from the remaining human soldiers. But before they can pull it off, an ominously named “The Colonel” invades the apes’ compound and kills Caesar’s wife and son.
What follows is a pretty generic story mapped onto a less-than-typical conceit. Caesar swears revenge. He sends the rest of the apes off to find their new homeland while he goes off to avenge his family’s killer. His closest friends won’t leave their side, and it leads a long journey where our heroes make new friends, save their community, and a combination of good fortune and arguably divine intervention allows them to win the day and find their landing spot.
That’s the one useful thematic reference point you can offer for War. As much as the film wants to make Caesar into Rambo, stoically trying to get justice for his fallen loved ones against a barely-sketched enemy, with ample firearms and fighting, it also wants to make him Moses. He suffers for his demand that The Colonel not treat the apes like slaves and instead let his people go. He watches his enemies perish in an avalanche, not unlike the biblical re-merging of the Red Sea that swept up the Egyptian army. And he leads his people to the promised land, but can’t go inside himself.
It’s just a pretty dull trip to get there. War is a film almost completely devoid of momentum. Beyond Caesar’s “I will avenge you” motivation, everything in the movie just sort of happens, whether it’s stumbling onto unlikely allies or conveniently arriving opposing armies. Some of the individual pieces are nice enough: the continuing warmth of Caesar’s friend and right-hand man Maurice, the comic relief of the outsider ape who joins their band, or a quisling Gorilla who eventually sees the light. And while not as striking as in Dawn, there’s visual acuity here, with the contrast between the snowy landscapes that cover most of the film with the lush backdrop that Caesar is framed in at the end being particularly good. But all of these elements feel lumped together rather than part of an organic progression or cohesive whole of the film.
The brightest diamond in the rough of the movie is the performance of Andy Serkis and the film’s team of designers and animators. No CGI characters have ever felt as real, vivid, and part of their environment as the apes, particularly the main characters, feel in this film. There is weight and texture to each of them that makes you empathize with the movie’s simian contingent and feel their pain and compassion. But Caesar is the crowning achievement on that front. Serkis gets to speak much more in this film than in prior ones, and the way his minute expressions are captured, to deliver a nuance layered performance through digital firm is absolutely breathtaking.
It’s too bad the human characters can’t come close to that. Woody Harrelson plays the film’s antagonist, and he pretty much just does Woody Harrelson thing. If you’ve seen him in any other movie recently, you can pretty much port him over as a military guy and not miss much in the execution. The movie tries to contrast and compare his and Caesar’s hardship over the loss of their children, and it shows his extreme method of dealing with an epidemic of humans turning speechless that doesn't serve much purpose beyond trying to account for the nigh-feral humans in the original film. But mostly, War just trots him out, has him Harrelson it up all over the place, and calls it a day, to quickly dwindling results.
The shame of it is that, in 2017, there’s a strong metaphor of people fearing societal change, of Harrelson’s implicit “we will not be erased” message in the face of “savages” rising to prominence. But it’s not even really subtext in War; it’s set dressing. The real show is in Caesar trying to decide whether or not he has enough hate, or could get over his hate, or has to swallow his hate after the loss of his wife and son, and rather than using that fridging to dredge up some meaning, the film is content to let it ride as a bog standard revenge mission.
That could be interesting enough, especially through the lens of sentient chimps finding creative ways to approach their human antagonists. But it’s not enough to sustain a two-hour movie, and it’s a step down from the biggers grasps at profundity this franchise has offered in its previous two outings. War for the Planet of the Apes might be a decent enough, if forgettable, sci-fi/action flick as its own thing. But as the culmination and a climax of a franchise that dug far deeper than “he killed my wife,” it can’t help be a disappointment.