War for the Planet of the Apes

Excellent trilogy Most Hollywood remakes/reboots are failed cash grabs. They are pale imitations of the superior originals. But the new Planet of the Apes trilogy surprises in that it trumps all the previous Apes films--those from the 60's and 70's as well as the Tim Burton 2001 misfire. Caesar still leads the intelligent apes against the human forces who want to eradicate them. Caesar even shows mercy to some of his human captives, but the humans who fear the apes will not relent in their attempts to destroy them. The movie is driven largely by Andy Serkis's superb portrayal of Caesar. He is a complex and intriguing character. Woody Harrelson is also very good as the villain. His character is no generic, stock bad guy. He's layered and you may even surprisingly feel some sympathy for him. A great and thought provoking popcorn flick.

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.