Review: WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES 
(SCI-FI/ACTION-THRILLER) 
★★★1/2
Directed by Matt Reeves
Screenplay by Mark Bomback & Matt Reeves
Starring: Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Steve Zahn, Karin Konoval, Amiah Miller, Terry Notary, Ty Olsson, Michael Adamthwaite, Gabriel Chavarria, Judy Greer, Sara Canning, Devyn Dalton, Max Lloyd-Jones, Aleks Paunovic, Alessandro Juliani, Chad Rook
Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi violence and action, thematic elements, and some disturbing images.
140 minutes
Verdict: The best installment of the rebooted series is emotionally devastating, suitably thought-provoking and features stunning action.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES IF YOU LIKED:
DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES  (2014)
RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES  (2011) 
THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE  (2013)
THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI  (1957)
MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD  (2003)

The Planet of the Apes series is that other franchise.  It's an improbable candidate for multi-hundred-million dollar budgets or the blockbuster grosses needed to sustain those costs, but DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES pulled over $700 million in 2014 against an approximately $200 million budget.  They're marketed sort of like action-fantasy blockbusters, but they're more in the area of brooding, philosophical science fiction, like Star Trek without the optimism.  They aren't crowd-pleasing, but when they work, it's one of the most thought-provoking and ambitious film franchises around.  It's been around longer than Star Wars, and in some cases paved the way for Lucas and Spielberg with its imaginative high concepts, sophisticated fantasies and sequel storytelling, but even when they've succeeded with blockbuster profits, most of them are not blockbuster movies in style or essence.  They're often thrilling, but they aren't the kind of movies you'd describe as a "thrill ride."  They have wide enough appeal that Fox has kept making them for half a century as of next year, but they aren't quite in the same category of wide appeal as the likes of most major film franchises.  They're right on the cusp of that, big enough to demand big budgets, but also a bold option that flies in the face of conventional franchise filmmaking as it has existed in all the series' 49 years, taking on the human propensity for conflict, darkness, oppression, destruction and hope.  They're not all good, from the limply misshapen BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES to the thoroughly misguided mayhem of Tim Burton's 2001 "re-imagining," but on occasion, they're tremendous, and WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES is such an occasion.

RISE... was a movie that significantly exceeded expectations, coming 10 years after the much-loathed Burton failed reboot and without the budget to fully render its CGI ape characters to a sufficient realism, but also with a story and characters that elevated the rebooted franchise to a lofty standard.  I was personally was so excited for DAWN... that I wasn't prepared for what it turned out to be and caught me off guard.  DAWN... had an awesome poster of Caesar mounted atop a horse and wielding a machine gun, but it all turned out to be a bait-and-switch with a thoughtful and carefully crafted story about a struggle to prevent conflict and a war that comes about in spite.  I think I gave DAWN... four stars after seeing it a second time and trying to wrap my head around it, trying to reconcile what it was with my unfair expectations.  In retrospect, I would definitely give it a lower rating, maybe three stars.  It was an interesting and unexpected story, one that you wouldn't expect to get told and in such detail, but in the end, it felt strangely and ironically mitigated.  DAWN... benefits, however, from seeing WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES.

As with DAWN..., writer/director Matt Reeves and co-screenwriter Mark Bomback subvert expectations and pass over most of the titular war, opening the story of WAR... two years later during which the war between Caesar's apes and the remnants of an American military has been raging.  Caesar (Andy Serkis, continuing another career-defining performance) leads his clan from a hidden base in the mountainous woodlands, but the human military called Alpha-Omega is closing in on them.  The movie opens with a stunning, electrifying battle between their forces, with long aerial shots showing the bloody chaos in wide view while Michael Giacchino's score wails ominously.  It's thrilling, but also frightening, with the adrenaline rush of combat but also the horror while humans are skewered by spears and flaming apes are hurled in fiery explosions.  Alpha-Omega is made up of human forces but also includes low-ranking apes which they dub "donkeys" (either in reference to their 'beast of burden' role or 'Donkey Kong', if not both, but it isn't made clear), those that followed Caesar's hate-filled rival Koba to war in the previous film and defected to the human army for protection or other self-serving purposes after losing faith in Caesar.  After winning the battle, Caesar sets his prisoners free as a sign of good faith to the human leader in hopes of ending the war, but later that night, the apes are ambushed and Caesar's family is murdered by Alpha-Omega's merciless leader, Colonel McCullough (Woody Harrelson, channeling more than a little of Marlon Brando's Colonel Kurtz from APOCALYPSE NOW).  Caesar sends his clan to relocate to a faraway safe location that has been scouted out, but having now been pushed over the edge himself, he resolves to extract payback from the humans, specifically the Colonel, and seeks out Alpha-Omega's base.  Accompanied by his oldest allies, Maurice (an orangutan, played by Karin Konoval), Rocket (a fellow chimpanzee, played by Terry Notary) and Luca (a gorilla, played by Michael Adamthwaite), Caesar embarks on a journey that begins the reveal the inevitable fate of the apes and humans and who will claim control of the planet.  Along the way they are joined by Nova (Amiah Miller), a sympathetic human war orphan, and Bad Ape (Steve Zahn), a former zoo chimpanzee who learned to speak independently of Caesar's tribe when the virus that killed most of the human and enhanced simian intelligence.  When they find the Alpha-Omega camp, Caesar finds the humans have been imprisoning apes, including his own clan who were on their way to a new home when they were captured, and forcing them to work, so Caesar must once again assert his role as leader and savior of the apes to free them from their servitude.

It seems strange to place so much of the plot of a movie called WAR OF THE PLANET OF THE APES within a prison escape story, but it's an echo of the ape enclosure and lab escape plots of RISE..., with which this movie forms a trilogy.  RISE... also briefly referenced an astronaut mission that suggested the series would eventually swing around to the plot of the 1968 original in which Charlton Heston discovered a planet ruled by an ape civilization, but for the time being, that appears to be little more than an Easter egg one-off.  While the series could still continue if WAR... is successful enough, the trilogy centered around Andy Serkis's Caesar character is remarkable in any case and handsomely fulfilled by its third chapter, which may very well be its best.  Within the prison escape story are moments of vicious, stunning brutality (certainly for a big budget summer movie) contrasted with emotionally stirring moments of grace, and while Reeves typically keeps things grounded, he occasionally injects a sense of scale comparable to THE DARK KNIGHT in the grim parable of human folly.  In fact, in some ways, WAR... is doing the same things as Christopher Nolan attempted in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES but with significantly greater success.

The characters may be apes, but the Planet of the Apes movies have always been about humanity, and not necessarily about parts of humanity that are pleasant to deal with, but made more palatable through the warped lens of a topsy-turvy world order.  The metaphors of WAR... are not as broad as those of the 1968 original or even its more immediate predecessors, but the ugliness and ferociousness of war, fear and displacement are presented in a real and unsettling way that mirrors the real world.  Men are building a wall in futility and desperation while a similarly desperate demagogue watches from overhead; they are desperate to maintain that which makes them human, and they're willing to do terrible things to do so, things terrible enough that they may have already lost the sense of humanity they're trying to preserve.  The apes reflect another side of humanity, also susceptible to hate and fear, empathy and apathy, but it's empathy that will save them.  It's a story without easy answers and with devastating, bittersweet consequences.  It's not really an action movie.  There's action, and some of it is stunning (that opening battle sequence, though), but it's overshadowed by the tragic drama of it all.  The dynamic between Harrelson's Colonel and Serkis's Caesar is terrific, the two of them intertwined in a doomed collision course, and newcomer Amiah Miller is wonderful as the mute little girl who represents something pure and hopeful in humanity even as they face destruction from nature and of their own design.

There are a few little things that could be better.  It's never boring, but it could be a little tighter, and for as many emotional gut-punches as it has already, a little more development of Caesar's family in either this installment or DAWN... would make his sense of loss hit harder.  As it is, you kind of just accept that the murder of his family is obviously a tremendous loss, but you don't feel it very strongly.  Bad Ape isn't a bad character, but it isn't clear why he's particularly necessary (Reeves has suggested that if the series continues beyond WAR... it will focus on Bad Ape, but the reasoning behind that is not apparent).  These are mostly nitpicks; it's a fantastic movie, one that remains engaging from start to finish, full of beauty and brutality, and finally leaves you with a lot to think about.

                                                                                                                                                        Images via 20th Century Fox