Humans are horrible beings and need to be stopped immediately. That has been the overwhelming feeling I have gotten whenever I've watched the entries for this Planet of the Apes reboot. War for The Planet of The Apes does not help the cause of the inferior species in the slightest. This is the third movie in the rebooted trilogy that are prequels to the original 1960s and 70s quintology (that’s 5 movies for the uninitiated, plus I think it may not even be a word). The trilogy’s timeline started 15 years before War begins. In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, experiments are conducted which bring create intelligent apes, including our protagonist Caesar (played by Andy Serkis). Those experiments also bring about a pandemic called Simian Flu, which wipes out almost the entire population of humans. Caesar leads the new ape civilization for nearly a decade in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes until the surviving humans struggling to survive clash with a rebel ape and former ally of Caesar’s, Koba. It is now two years after the events of Dawn, and Caesar is fighting for the survival of his kind (luckily for all of you who haven’t seen the first two, this synopsis is the opening scene of the War).
War for the Planet of the Apes was criminally underseen in the theaters. This includes yours truly. After seeing Rise on DVD and lamenting how I did not see at the movies, I told myself that I had to see War in theaters. If I didn’t, I knew I would regret it. Well,
So please, if you have not seen it yet, go immediately to your nearest place of DVD/Blu-Ray consumption and watch this movie. It is as close to something perfect as I have seen for a very long time. What is special about it is that as a movie with the word “war” in it, there is a very limited amount of action. While there are definitely action sequences in the movie, there are far less action-packed war scenes than the audience may expect. Yet, just because there is far less action than anticipated doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of “war” to be had in this film.
Part of what makes this movie a fantastic ending to a very dramatic and emotional trilogy is that it deals a lot in the more harrowing aspects of war: death, guilt, sacrifice, and captivity. On both sides of the conflict, characters are faced with the worst choices imaginable. When they make a decision, you can tell how much pain and conflict went through their conscious without them having to say word. This is even truer with the motion-captured apes than with the humans. This tension that is captured within and amongst protagonists allows for the movie to never feel sluggish in between the scarce action. What also enhances the pace and the emotional connection of the movie was the choice to have multiple scenes shot through a first-person point-of-view. Going from a wide shot immediately into the eyes of one of the characters brings the audience into emotional arc of the film.
Lastly, the acting in this film is top-notch. Woody Harrelson adds his amazing crazy to the main antagonist role. Each side character adds a lot of complexity with their limited screen time. There was not one role that felt unnecessary. One character named Bad Ape (Steve Zahn) could have been a cheesy comic-relief of the movie if played wrong. They found a way to balance slight humor with the psychological breakdown of war to make this trope very realistic and not overdone. The emotion captured through the motion-capture apes captured (lots of capturing going on) the depths of each ape’s soul. Andy Serkis finds a way to make motion-capture characters emote way more of their passion and feeling than regular humans. Maybe the assistance of technology helps with that, but the tech would be useless without the gravitas that Serkis’s voice and acting bring. Someone please give this man an Oscar nod! And not that BS honorable mentioned, after the fact, make up, lifetime Oscar (he isn’t that old yet). This role deserves at least a nomination for his incredible work.
War for the Planet of the Apes is an amazing ending to one of the best trilogies of the last 10 to 15 years, and deserves way more commercial success than it received in the theater. Please go see this film and bask in its greatness. I give this move 9.5/10 apes on horses with machine guns.