Hail Caesar
The Planet of the Apes remake trilogy has been the most underrated film series of the past decade and it reaches its poignant conclusion in War for the Planet of the Apes. A lab created simian flu has wiped out most of humanity and given rise to a race of super intelligent apes. In what remains of the United States, Caesar the original super-intelligent ape, leads a colony of apes that are trying to escape guerrilla warfare orchestrated by a crazed colonel and his soldiers. War is part revenge story, and part prison escape, wrapped in the Moses Exodus story. War for the Planet of the Apes is an impactful film that humanizes apes and dehumanizes man in more ways that one and I heartily recommend it.
I picked seeing this film over Spider-Man: Homecoming as I was growing tired of superhero films and felt that I needed to see something meatier. Having enjoyed both Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, seeing War was an obvious choice. Despite its name, War includes less actual human primate combat than the previous movie .Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The scope here are smaller and the stakes are more personal. The majority of the actual combat takes place in the the very beginning and end of the film and the final battle isn't exactly what you thought it would be. Director Matt Reeves does a tremendous job of giving the apes that we've been with since 2011 depth, personality, and emotion while Andy Serkis shines as Caesar who is brought to life using cutting edge CGI.
A few years have passed since the events of Rise, and Caesar is still haunted by the ghost of Koba, an ape whose sinister actions sparked a war between Man and Ape and caused divisions between the apes themselves. Caesar while older and war-weary has become a legend known to both species however he is brought to the brink when the Colonel invades his home and slaughters his wife and son. Rocked to the core, Caesar vows revenge and hunts the colonel while the remaining apes begin their journey to a new and hopefully safer home.
I enjoyed how the film plays with your expectations. For example, you believe that most of the movie will be about Caesar hunting down Woody Harrelson's Colonel however most of the film deals with Caesar and his attempts to free his captured friends and family. Our lead ape is captured, tortured, and the subject of no small amount of Jesus allegory . When the little girl Nova is introduced, you expect her to be large part of the film similar to X-23 in Logan. Ultimately, her role is minor except for setting the Colonel's fate in motion. Caesar's journey in the end more resembles that of Moses in Exodus rather than his namesake. In this case the enslaved people are apes and instead of escaping Egypt, the apes are trying escape human captivity to reach their promised land. Caesar's fate mirrors that of Moses by the film's conclusion.
On the negative side, I felt that the film's attempts at humor didn't connect. While I know why they brought in the character Bad Ape, namely to add some comic relief, I found his presence at times unneeded.He was more annoying than funny in my opinion and he wore out his welcome beyond his initial scenes. In addition to dragging during part of the escape sequence, I felt that the film overplayed their hand in making the humans irredeemable. Whether this was an effect or the virus making humans more primitive or not I could not discern. The apes were clearly the good characters and humans were clearly the bad ones. Little gray existed on the human side though the apes were given some in the form of the enslaved "Donkeys". While the Colonel was eventually given some depth,due the precarious position of the human race, he remained a clearly evil character.
War for the Planet of the Apes is a satisfying conclusion to this reboot trilogy. Considering my first Planet of the Apes experience was the Matt Damon film, I'd say the series has fully turned itself around. For anyone suffering from superhero fatigue, War for the Planet of the Apes proves to be a worthy antidote.
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