War for the Planet of the Apes

And to think, there was a time when we all wondered why we needed a new Planet of the Apes series, and now we’re all better off because of it!

The final entry in this rebooted series of films (for now), War for the Planet of the Apes sees our protagonist and ape savior, Cesar (Andy Serkis), as he tries his hardest to keep the peace between the remaining humans and smart apes that have slowly risen to dominance over the years. Still affected by the betrayal of one of his own from the previous sequel, Cesar worries that the tensions between humans and apes will never recede, a fact that proves true when the Colonel (Woody Harrelson) infiltrates Cesar’s home, murders his wife and child, captures his youngest remaining son and vanishes without a trace, leaving death and confusion in his wake. Now with three of his best ape pals in tow, Maurice (Karin Konoval), Rocket (Terry Notary), Luca (Michael Adamthwaite), and a young, mysterious girl found along the way that may hold the key to a new strain of the simian flu that wiped out most humans worldwide, Cesar must find the location of this Colonel to save his son and the many apes alike that he holds captive, further solidifying his status as the one ape that might be able to turn the tide of this war, and maybe even end it.

Who woulda thought that this new trilogy of Ape films would have turned out this way, huh? What a pleasant surprise. After seeing Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I wasn’t sure how this franchise was going to move forward. Being more of stage-setting drama than anything else, the first film in the trilogy treated its characters as just that – characters. It made us care about Cesar’s plight, about the abuse and rise of a new intelligent species that could stand toe to toe with humans and win both physically and mentally. It gave us a sympathetic angle to an eventual ruthless enemy of the human race, showing us that every side has its own story. Flash forward to the next sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and I was surprised that the care and devotion paid to these characters was still front and center in the story, albeit wrapped in a more action packed shell. Now with War for the Planet of the Apes, the filmmakers give us a three-peat, further advancing old character arcs and the development of its main apes while effectively showing us the continued spark of rebellion still bubbling under the surface of the rising ape population.

It’s here that this film succeed in ways I never expected: these are real characters with real problem, fighting a real war that has nothing to do with the spectacle of it all just to please fans and regular moviegoers alike, but more so to do with the actual problems inherent in this world that the filmmakers have created. Humans – the bad guys in these films – don’t fight just to do so, they fight because, in their eyes, the apes are taking away their world, a fight that is only bolstered by the fact that the human population has been annihilated by a flu the apes inadvertently became responsible for. The humans fight for survival against an enemy that’s not just trying to defeat them, but trying to replace them, and as weird a casting as Woody Harrelson is (admittedly I think this entire series was cast weird), he brings just enough to the role of the nefarious Colonel, narrowly avoiding the regular bad guy shtick, thus making him less of a cookie cutter villain and more of a foil to our main ape, Cesar. As with their human counterparts, the apes have their reason for fighting too, and again, not just some faked reason to see things blow up on screen, no, these simians are fighting for survival as well, but with an added twist: they fight for the right to survive. I never would have thought that these films would have taken the philosophical route in explaining the war for the planet, but the filmmakers stuck to their guns and really developed something worth paying attention to, giving real weight to what happens onscreen at every turn.

But none of this would be even remotely effective without the majority of what happens to Cesar and his band of apes on their journey to the Colonel’s stronghold. Paying equal attention to Cesar and his closest comrades alike (on top of a great performance by Andy Serkis) gives this film an adventure quality reminiscent of Frodo’s journey to destroy the ring, just obviously not as epic in scale. Feelings for these characters sneak up on you when something bad happens or when they are put in danger that you want them to get out of, and truly shows that the characters are the main driving force behind this series, not the War or the Dawn or the Rise of it all. Add yet another great addition to the cast in Steve Zahn’s Bad Ape, and you have a totally competent movie that just happens to have apes at the center of it.

Outside of a few problems with the over the top and sometimes cliché depiction of Cesar as the ape savior (are we really gonna pretend like he’s Ape Jesus here?), and an ending that while poignant in its own right, wasn’t the most satisfying thing in the world, there’s not much to dislike here. My overall thoughts on this one are about the same as Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, meaning I liked what was presented over the course of the film, but I still longed for something a little more…I don’t know, unique and new in spots. There’s still a lot to like here but there’s an odd sense of some sort of a missing “wow” factor that could have elevated this film to even higher heights, but in the end, everything is serviceable and mostly on point, I was just hoping for a few more standout scenes and breath taking set pieces.

An effective end cap for this new trilogy, War for the Planet of the Apes fares slightly better than its predecessor while blazing its own emotional and action packed path through the final leg of the ape uprising. At this point, Andy Serkis has risen above his motion capture craft and handily proves that he’s one of the best actors out there, period, and does an amazing job holding this film – and the entire rebooted trilogy – on his more than capable shoulders. Mix in a more focused narrative and some intriguing new takes on the Planet of the Apes mythology, and you have a solid film that succeeds in completing a series that by all means had no reason to ever be made. If the gods of Hollywood intend to keep this franchise going into the future, one can only hope that they stay true to the sophistication and care taken with these new films, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s good enough for me.