War for the Planet of the Apes 2017

"This is our last stand. And if we lose... it will be a Planet of Apes".

"War for the Planet of the Apes" has many intriguing plot points and plenty of great opportunities to shine as a great movie. I mean, with the previous two films that I liked so much and how the effects manage to improve over time is amazing. And this movie is worth seeing just for Andy Serkis performance and the incredible also realistic effects. Unfortunately, the rest is very uneven. While being a decent third installment, but draws the oldest cliches from the books.

Andy Serkis continues to impress us not just by giving us another great performance, but to convey all the emotions with his body and face while being coved with heavy effects. Serkis is the only actor that we think as expressed all of his range, but keeps surprising us with the characters he plays.

Speaking of effects, it's pretty much the stand out of the film. Despite knowing what we are seeing in front of us is CGI, but the illusion is so good, we forgot it's fiction. It really has involved over the years and we are also there to perfection.

The action scene at the beginning was pretty good. A little bit cheesy with all the slow-mo and people dramatically dying everything with music in the background, but I guess you got to start with a bang.

I think Caesar getting captured and locked up in that prison is when the film fell apart for me. Yep, it's a prison break movie and that isn't a bad thing, just needed to be more sharper in terms of its' execution. The movie goes way overboard with the Jesus, Nazi allegories, and Holocaust imagery. Yeah, I'm not making that up. So heavy handed it's impossible to miss. You could add "Apocalypse Now" in the mix with the small references to it, because why not. It's like whoever wrote this kept shouting at me "get it?". 

The comedic relief ape character (Bad Ape) and the little girl are the most pointless characters in a movie ever. I didn't laugh at anything the Bad Ape did that was suppose to be funny. The little girl didn't do anything.

Woody Harrelson as the villain was fine. There's a long monologue about him talking this virus and how it involved. What could have been an interesting and also menacing scene, quickly goes on a little too long. I don't have an issue with Harrelson performance, just if the character was written better.

There's a really stupid moment in the movie when a guard gets shit thrown at him by the apes and tries to find who did it. So he literally locks himself in the cage filled with millions of apes and doesn't inform the other guards, just in case they might attack him. Like, how freaking stupid to you have to be? And you can tell what's going to happen. It was written in the movie just for the apes to escape and it's so lazy.

There seem to be a lack of security guards in the prison, because when a little girl manages to walk straight in without anyone see her, now that's questionable. Or notice when the apes escaped. Like how many guards are there? People are calling this a masterpiece?

Overall Rating: While it may seem like I disliked the film, that couldn't be further to the truth. I'm not saying it's a bad movie or anything, because it's not. There are plenty of good and well done scenes that makes me curious what Matt Reeves will bring to "The Batman".

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.

A rather shaky third installment, especially considering it closing the trilogy.

The promotional materials - trailers, posters, etc - are rather deceiving. This is not a war for the planet. This is a quest of the apes to survive, mixed with hope and revenge. The only armed combatant are the humans, who actively seek apes to kill. So if you're expecting a war movie, no, this film doesn't do it.

Even when you're expecting an emotional drama, like its two fantastic film before, War for the Planet of the Apes still doesn't quite cut it. The plot in the first 15 minutes moves rather fast, but after that, for quite a bit the story feels a little dragging, from one point to another to another one. Important characters just get killed off without significant impact. Perhaps, to the main character Caesar , it was indeed a huge impact, but we don't get to see it is portrayed pretty well.

I was under the impression the fast-paced beginning were to build up a huge momentum in the climax with a little shaky transition, but near the end the plot introduces a third party, another human faction, which makes the tension between Caesar (Andy Serkis)/the Apes and The Colonel (Woody Harrelson)/Alpha-Omega human army kinda lost its focus for some moments. Especially so this third party got killed rather easily in the end, reducing it to nothing but filler.

The film still attempts to raise important themes: humanity, complex emotions, the will to survive, etc. Those elements from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes are still intact, but with less focus than its predecessor. It doesn't grip to the plot from start to finish; instead the story seems to try to tell something else along the lines. New characters, like Bad Ape (Steve Zahn) and Nova (Amiah Miller), are not utilized to maximum potential with them just drifting around here and there.

It's still pretty decent though. Andy Serkis' performance is perfect as always. And you can always have good allegory from the Apes, with the story of Colonel's armies and Caesar's personal dilemma bring a rather interesting twist to the shaky plot. However it could've been better, especially seeing this as a closing to the trilogy.

[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.

Oh, I can't put into words how exciting it was to finally watch the ending of this trilogy - mostly because english is not my first language -, but I will try.

Well, I think the second movie is still my favorite - I watched it in the theater with some friends back in 2014 - but I really appreciate how unique and brave this movie was.

What I want to say is that it's a blockbuster. Like every other blockbuster out there it has that big and full-of-action third act. But at same time the movie manages to use the two first acts to focus on what is important: the characters; more precisely, the apes. We barely see humans as characters we should care about - barely, I said. And this time, more than ever, the humans are the villains. That seems pretty clear. ( I just want to make it clear that I don't see a third act full of action as a problem. It just felt as if it had no place in this movie, even more if you start to considering the crafting of the story throughout the first act ).

I think that the most important, and also my favorite thing about the movie, is that it's a movie about the apes. We don't need to see humans playing the major role in the story. The apes are the protagonist in this movie, and only them. It gives a different perspective both from the first and the second movie, and at the same time it gives us more screen-time with the apes. Which is great.

Caesar's character arc is well-constructed and he has - let's say - really good reasons to do what he is doing. It's really great to see that Caesar is still trying to use diplomacy with the humans, even though the humans are being completely jerks with the apes. It serves to show that we are seeing the same Caesar that we know from the previous movies and that some past events didn't change his way to think about the war. He only wants a place where his kind can live in peace. Fair enough, right?

It's a simple movie, with a simple story. It's about Caesar and the future of the apes, and I think that the most important message on this movie is: LET THE GODDAMN APES ALONE AND DIE, HUMANS!

"War for the Planet of the Apes" is the third installment in the rebooted franchise, set two years after the events of "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes." Caesar (Andy Serkis) and the simian community are hiding in the San Francisco woods as the humans close in on them. After an attempt at peace fails, Caesar embarks on a personal mission of vengeance against the human leader, The Colonel (Woody Harrelson), leaving his community behind and accompanied by his closest allies. The film, directed by Matt Reeves and written by Mark Bomback, takes a more introspective approach, focusing on Caesar's internal struggles and sidestepping the pitfalls of previous trilogy closers by not relying on action and spectacle. The stunning imagery, mind-blowing CGI/motion capture, and a powerful score by Michael Giacchino, all contribute to making the film an astounding visual and auditory experience. Andy Serkis delivers a standout performance, and Woody Harrelson is also noteworthy as the Colonel. While the pacing of the film may drag in the second half, and some characters may take time to warm up to, "War for the Planet of the Apes" is a thought-provoking and emotionally-charged film that brings the trilogy to a satisfying conclusion.

"War for the Planet of the Apes" es la tercera entrega de la franquicia reiniciada, ambientada dos años después de los eventos de "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes". Caesar (Andy Serkis) y la comunidad de simios se esconden en los bosques de San Francisco mientras los humanos se acercan a ellos. Después de que fracasa un intento de paz, Caesar se embarca en una misión personal de venganza contra el líder humano, The Colonel (Woody Harrelson), dejando atrás a su comunidad y acompañado por sus aliados más cercanos. La película, dirigida por Matt Reeves y escrita por Mark Bomback, adopta un enfoque más introspectivo, centrándose en las luchas internas de Caesar y esquivando las trampas de los cierres de trilogía anteriores al no depender de la acción y el espectáculo. Las impresionantes imágenes, la captura de movimiento/CGI alucinante y la poderosa partitura de Michael Giacchino contribuyen a hacer de la película una experiencia visual y auditiva asombrosa. Andy Serkis ofrece una actuación destacada, y Woody Harrelson también se destaca como el Coronel. Si bien el ritmo de la película puede prolongarse en la segunda mitad, y algunos personajes pueden tardar en acostumbrarse, "La guerra del planeta de los simios" es una película estimulante y cargada de emociones que lleva la trilogía a un nivel satisfactorio. conclusión.

"This is our last stand. And if we lose... it will be a Planet of Apes".

"War for the Planet of the Apes" has many intriguing plot points and plenty of great opportunities to shine as a great movie. I mean, with the previous two films that I liked so much and how the effects manage to improve over time is amazing. And this movie is worth seeing just for Andy Serkis performance and the incredible also realistic effects. Unfortunately, the rest is very uneven. While being a decent third installment, but draws the oldest cliches from the books.

Andy Serkis continues to impress us not just by giving us another great performance, but to convey all the emotions with his body and face while being coved with heavy effects. Serkis is the only actor that we think as expressed all of his range, but keeps surprising us with the characters he plays.

Speaking of effects, it's pretty much the stand out of the film. Despite knowing what we are seeing in front of us is CGI, but the illusion is so good, we forgot it's fiction. It really has involved over the years and we are also there to perfection.

The action scene at the beginning was pretty good. A little bit cheesy with all the slow-mo and people dramatically dying everything with music in the background, but I guess you got to start with a bang.

I think Caesar getting captured and locked up in that prison is when the film fell apart for me. Yep, it's a prison break movie and that isn't a bad thing, just needed to be more sharper in terms of its' execution. The movie goes way overboard with the Jesus, Nazi allegories, and Holocaust imagery. Yeah, I'm not making that up. So heavy handed it's impossible to miss. You could add "Apocalypse Now" in the mix with the small references to it, because why not. It's like whoever wrote this kept shouting at me "get it?". 

The comedic relief ape character (Bad Ape) and the little girl are the most pointless characters in a movie ever. I didn't laugh at anything the Bad Ape did that was suppose to be funny. The little girl didn't do anything.

Woody Harrelson as the villain was fine. There's a long monologue about him talking this virus and how it involved. What could have been an interesting and also menacing scene, quickly goes on a little too long. I don't have an issue with Harrelson performance, just if the character was written better.

There's a really stupid moment in the movie when a guard gets shit thrown at him by the apes and tries to find who did it. So he literally locks himself in the cage filled with millions of apes and doesn't inform the other guards, just in case they might attack him. Like, how freaking stupid to you have to be? And you can tell what's going to happen. It was written in the movie just for the apes to escape and it's so lazy.

There seem to be a lack of security guards in the prison, because when a little girl manages to walk straight in without anyone see her, now that's questionable. Or notice when the apes escaped. Like how many guards are there? People are calling this a masterpiece?

Overall Rating: While it may seem like I disliked the film, that couldn't be further to the truth. I'm not saying it's a bad movie or anything, because it's not. There are plenty of good and well done scenes that makes me curious what Matt Reeves will bring to "The Batman".

War for the Planet of the Apes is the third in the series of ‘Ape’ movies that have all told lovingly and carefully paid homage to original 70s films whilst driving the story and settings in a different direction.

So often in the modern filmmaking world, reboots/remakes that claim to ‘pay homage’ to the original films they are based never live up to the originals. Now as a huge childhood fan of the original Planet of the Apes films (and the TV show) it is a great pleasure to see a set of film-makers and actors who clearly have a great respect for the source of their film.

The War for the Planet of Apes is clearly greatly updated in the storyline, realistic settings and unparalleled special effects and ape acting but if you look closely you can see the setups and references to those original films. In particular, I was delighted with the build-up and story behind ‘Nova’ the mute girl and how human’s became mute (or will). The makers really sat down went through the original stories and must have said let’s pad this out, give it a reason and not just say ‘because it is’.

It made me smile and still does thinking about it now. Someone thought long and hard about the backstory, cogs and wheels in the background.

The story itself is as old as the hills, revenge, pure and simple. What makes it better than most is the clear villain, Woody Harrelson, has a motive that makes sense and there is a reason for his specifically cruel and merciless actions. Most of us, but not all, would not agree with them but we do know why he does them and it’s not because he is ‘evil’. Yes, the makers do have a dig and modern society and the current world situation and why not? It’s a road that is clear for all to see.

The action sequences are as good as most serious war films and especially the opening assault puts me in mind of a few Vietnam films from over the years, both claustrophobic and then all-encompassing with some great sweeping camera shots.

It takes some great writing and motion-capture acting to make you close to tears over the deaths of CGI apes and laugh at the antics of Steve Zahn’s comic side-kick ‘Bad Ape’. In lesser hands it could have been awful but the motion-capture and Zahn’s comic chops had the role on the right side of the tracks. Needless to say, Andy Serkis is basically now a real talking ape because he has his role to the T so much you forget he’s an actor from London. He is helped no end with his supporting cast, particularly the other apes where facial and body language is the performance. That is not to cast the ‘humans’ into the shadows because overall I could not think of a character that jarred with me throughout the running time.

It was great to see that a film that uses ‘War’ in its title did not go down the explosions and non-stop gun battles that perhaps some would expect or even want it to be. There is a battle at the beginning and battle at the end but in between you get a drama with pathos, laughter, tears and peril. Pretty impressive I’d say.

Both the main character are neither black nor white, there is a moral to the story and real peril throughout with no character, favourite or otherwise, guaranteed to make it to the conclusion. The settings and locations are both magnificent, wild and natural. A world left alone.

If I have a quibble it would be the ending seemed rushed and slightly too neat, which is odd considering the film’s 140 minutes running time, I can’t actually say what happens without spoiling the film but considering the way the story was crafted as messy and difficult for all the characters, like real life, the ending was just too neat, too tied up in a bow but it’s a personal quibble really. Others will love the ending I’m sure.

Oh and I hated Woody Harrelson’s actor’s tool, the unnecessary sunglasses, used to take off and put on to emphasise points.

War for the Planet of the Apes is a very, very, good film, it sits comfortably with the first two films of the series, is a fine update on the original films and pays knowing, loving and carefully thought-out tribute and continuation of those 70s film storylines.

This is a great film and I look forward to the next in the series and I will love to see how the makers craft their story with the original series of films storyline.

On this movie I have to get a couple of things out of the way straight away.

First, the movie title and the blurb is hyperbole that has little to do with actual events in the movie. This is not some great war but just some silly little three way skirmish between some apes and two human factions.

Second, the story for this movie is clearly written by someone who has an agenda and that agenda includes preaching how bad the white man is.

Not surprisingly the result is bland, boring, frustrating and not very entertaining.

I thought Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was mildly entertaining. Mostly due to the special effects. I thought Rise of the Planet of the Apes was okay. Again due to the special effects and because it had a fair amount of action. War for the Planet of the Apes do have decent special effects but nothing else. Add the obvious political agenda and the movie goes straight into a nose dive.

The humans in the movie are stereotypical bad people and the apes are victims whether they are actually good apes or just asshole apes. There’s some decent action in the beginning and some at the end. In between we are “treated” to a slew of emotional scenes (or at least I suppose that’s what they were supposed to be) were Ceasars grief and the evil of man are force fed down our throats.

Not surprisingly the movie ends, which it of course do not do until all humans in sight are killed off for no good reason, with the apes finding their little part of heaven all shown in warm and rosy colors. Close curtain…thank good!

I was not expecting much from this movie but this was a typical Hollywood-with-an-agenda-movie. That is, not a good movie as far as I am concerned.

I wore my Donkey Kong shirt when I went to see the film opening weekend, and without knowing, sure enough there were "Donkeys" in the film. The pacing for WAR is a bit on the sluggish end but for good reason. It being the third (and final?) film in this Apes trilogy, I think the filmmakers wanted to have a little fun with this entry adding some snow (Winter) and interesting new characters including a comic relief and a young infected orphan of which are welcomed outcasts to the apes clan. To me, the orphan girl, played by Amiah Miller, also in Lights Out (2016), symbolized hope, and had a synchronized connection with the apes. They aid in the great escape, which took up most of the film; also reminded me of the escape in the Aardman Animations film, Chicken Run (2000). I think the film title ought to be Escape from the Planet of the Apes. Woody makes for a believable role (Colonel) whenever he plays an antagonist. Caesar is still haunted by the ghost of his previous foe in fear of developing a likeness the savagely ways. The motives for the two different leaders become clear, but in the end, the one with the better understanding of emotions, vengeance, and moral values would typically be the more respectable. There seems to be a definite improvement in the CG work compared to the first film from 2011, Rise (better lighting/computers perhaps?). I also liked the little references to Apocalypse Now (Ape-ocalypse Now pun) and Bedtime for Bonzo. In all, a fine closure and a touching one too.