Green Goblin Reviews: War for the Planet of the Apes
Well I gotta say, July has been pretty kick-ass with its releases thus far. We’ve had a fantastic Edgar Wright film in Baby Driver, Marvel got the reigns again and gave us Spider-man: Homecoming and now with the third installment of this rebooted Planet of the Apes film, 20th Century Fox has given us our first great film trilogy since Lord of the Rings if we’re being honest with ourselves. It’s amazing what filmmakers can do when they follow very simple rules as a bedrock for their art: give us compelling, endearing characters in interesting and dangerous situations and you will have an audience eager to see the outcome. For the third time in a row, they’ve managed to carry and entire film with this, using Andy Serkis in a mo-cap suit. I’m very happy to say that War for the Planet of the Apes, with its wonderfully silly sci-fi concept is well worth the price of admission.
If there’s one nitpick I’d like to point out almost immediately is that the names of this and the previous film don’t really line up. The previous film (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) had more to do with on-screen battle and warfare than this one. Hell, it had apes engaged in horseback combat wielding assault rifles. And the final setting of this film would truly lend itself to the new future dawning on the planet. But that’s just a very roundabout way for me to tell you that if you’re expecting full on Middle Earth-style combat, you might be a bit let down. This film isn’t a war film. It’s an escape film. Time has passed since we last left our simian heroes and Caesar has become the most sought out ape in all the world by the surviving humans. Through a series of unfortunate events, Caesar and company have found their entire shrewdness (apparently, that’s what a group of apes is called) captured by a splinter military faction named Alpha-Omega, led by the psychotic Colonel (Woody Harrelson). The faction has been using apes for slave labor in a weapons silo, built in the base of a mountain and it’s up to Caesar along with his small group of resistance fighters to break in and liberate their families and stave off Alpha-Omega’s plans.
There’s a lot to unpack when it comes to the Colonel’s motivation as a character and it’s hinted at with the little girl (Amiah Miller) you see in the trailers (I deduced it literally on the way to the theater), but I don’t want it spoiled for anyone who’s going into this film with limited knowledge of the original Planet of the Apes films. Rest assured though that like most fantastic villains in film, his methods and reasons all come from very nebulous shades of gray. And Caesar’s motivation if anything, comes more from a place of emotion than it ever has in previous films. He’s hellbent on achieving his goals, but not all of those goals are as altruistic as they have been in the past. At one point, the orangutan Maurice (Karin Konoval) says to him that he’s starting to sound like Koba (the ape villain from the previous film) and he even starts to have nightmares about turning into him. All of this is done in a way that really parallel’s the Colonel and begs the question to the audience about what one would do as a leader in order to save those that follow them. There are also some factoids dropped that continue to build out the world as it currently stands. So even if this were to be the final film, you could still see with little difficulty how this world would turn into one that would look much more familiar to a Mr. George Taylor.
There really aren’t many gripes to be had here, once you get the premise. Some new characters, like an elderly hermit Bad Ape (Steve Zahn) add some comic relief in places and new concepts like the “donkey” apes that work for the humans enslaving their own kind paints some interesting allegories to go alongside the allusions to white nationalism ingrained in the Alpha-Omega movement. I will say that if you’re coming in expecting a lot of action, you might be slightly disappointed. But when the action has been replaced with strong character development and engaging drama, it’s hard to feel too cheated out. And I’ve gone all this way into the review without discussing the cgi and motion capture work in this film mainly because it’s so seamless that I genuinely forget it’s there unless i focus directly on it. The apes in these movies have always looked great, but we’re honestly reaching the point where the naked eye can’t even tell.
Folks, I can only sing this film’s praises for so far without either venturing into spoiler territory or repeated myself. I’ll just end in saying that this is a fantastic film that will absolutely be in my top 5 for the year. Don’t sleep on this one.
9.5/10 This is a film trilogy that I will happily be adding to my collection and will more than likely add to my annual watch list. I highly suggest you get out there and enjoy this one while you can.