War for the Planet of the Apes (Matt Reeves)

[Henry Gale]

IMDb / Wiki

[Henry Gale]

Might feel a bit insular to share really comprehensive thoughts on it this far in advance of everyone else getting to see it, but having been luckily enough to see it this early, I'll mainly just assure that if you liked what came before, you're very likely to be quite satisfied with it just as I was.

I think it brings this series ―with its initially confounding purpose as to what it was even going to try to accomplish before anyone saw Rise― to a strong milestone in its story, and even an ending, rounding off a fully-realized arc of a trilogy. Whether or not it chooses to go forward from here (which, let's be honest, will depend largely on how much it makes), there's still a lot of potential to do so, as well as all of the original films already existing to allow a kind of mental leeway in saying these were true prequels to all along.

It's not as stylistically daring or emotionally grappling as some of the better blockbusters of late (though, going by my audience's reactions I might be in the minority on the latter) but it's very economic and intelligent in how it doles out its storytelling, choosing to lean just enough solely on its characters and bigger themes at the right times, exhibiting patience and uncertainty in its pace and motivations, all while creating one of the more unconventionally bleak tentpole films I can recall in recent memory. Having happened to see TV spots after I saw it last night, it's pretty funny how many plotlines they invented through marketing-only recorded dialogue to wedge in to make it seem like there's more cut-and-dry stakes to sell to audiences. One of them is Harrelson's character's disembodied voice (since there's no footage to back it up) yelling [

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"I want that girl!"... even though, I'm pretty sure he is never even aware of said girl at any point in the film.

] I also honestly think that the only reason that this movie isn't R-rated is because so much of the violence involves CGI apes and not humans. Because it is brutal at times.

So though it might not quite be on the awe level of some of what I remember the best of Dawn doing for me, but ultimately still a film way more solid film than most of its modern ilk, especially for one stemming from a franchise that will have now spanned 50 years and nine films. Whether or not everyone involved here returns for more (and I'm pretty sure Reeves will be more concerned with Batman and all the further Hollywood cachet that brings his way), this marks an impressive and thoroughly entertaining end-point of sorts if it needs to be. I look forward to re-watching the previous two and perhaps some of the original series' film before seeing War again once it's released next month (in 3D! which our screening was not, and I really liked the previous movie in it).

[Ezee E]

Can't wait.

[Pop Trash]

Can't wait.

Me neither. This is my favorite series right now.

[Morris Schæffer]

Reviews are exceptional.

[Dukefrukem]

So was the last movie and I didn't find it all that good.

[Wryan]

The last movie was definitely "all that good."

[Dead & Messed Up]

The last movie had great monkey stuff and bland human stuff. I honestly forgot that Gary Oldman was even in it until just now.

[Henry Gale]

The last movie had great monkey stuff and bland human stuff. I honestly forgot that Gary Oldman was even in it until just now.

Then you might be happy to learn that this one is almost entirely from the perspective of the apes.

Kind of seamless and perfect in a narrative sense that Rise was told from a mostly human POV but shifted to Caesar's as it went on, Dawn was more transitional in how it equally split between the two sides somewhat equally, and now I'm struggling to think of a single scene in War with only humans.

[Weems]

The last movie was definitely "all that good."

I loved Rise, but I found Dawn quite dull. I hope this is more like the former.

[Milky Joe]

This is without a doubt the most overrated big blockbuster franchise going right now.

[Dukefrukem]

This is without a doubt the most overrated big blockbuster franchise going right now.

This.

[TGM]

Loved Rise, thought Dawn was okay. I think this falls neatly somewhere in between. Good stuff here.

[Dead & Messed Up]

The ape stuff in both prior films are excellent, both in terms of special effects and characterization. The human stuff is always a level or two below. The series is definitely a bit over-valued with some hot takes on it being the "best franchise of the 2000s" or whatever, but I like the flicks quite a bit. Reliable sci-fi entertainment that so far feels thrilling without overblown (the two larger conflicts so far have been apes escape to an island, apes relinquish a dam). They could lean into satire/theming more than they do.

[Morris Schæffer]

Great movie, but that finale with the opposing troops and helicopters feels maddeningly shoehorned in. It's as if the writers remembered that bullshit poster for Reign of Fire and somehow wanted to deliver all the ridiculous firepower that Rob Bowman couldn't in 2002. It really robs (no pun intended) the movie of what I felt was a more logical and organical conclusion, namely just Harrelson's troops versus Ceasar's.
It's pretty spectacular, but I can't escape the feeling this really isn't the direction they wanted to go in, but the direction they felt they had to go in to earn the "war" in the title of the movie.

If the guys who wanted Harrelson done away with were more integral to the story, it might have played out differently, but the focus is solely on the apes for the (utterly brilliant) first hour so that was hard to do. This feels like having it both ways the way it plays out now. Giving it to convention. I don't understand [

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Harrelson's exit from the movie

]. Or perhaps I do, but do not consider it particularly satisfying.

We've spoken about dumb folks earlier when we discussed Alien Covenant, but the only reason they manage to get the kids out is because one dumb soldier felt the need to come down from his tower and enter the pen where all the apes are. With 5,5 months to go, this might already be the dumbest move of the year for sure. And I've seen Transformers: The Last Knight!

Then there's an [

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avalanche which all too neatly, and once more, takes out all the bad guys so the apes can escape.

] Like "the fuck are we supposed to do with all these soldiers and ordinance we just pulled out of our buttholes?!" Oh yeah, I know!!

[Dead & Messed Up]

I have no idea if this was good or not. I'm also not sure if it's actually saying anything meaningful in the ways it seems to think it is. This is a very strange movie. It feels like it carries all the surface details of a thoughtful and good sci-fi.

[Peng]

Might be the least of the reboot franchise, which just goes to show how sturdy and surprisingly evolving these films have been. It lacks the sweeping, rousing crescendo of Rise or the intensely thorny exploration of conflicts in Dawn (Full disclosure: Dawn arrived to be a very potent reflection on a phase in Thailand's troubled political turmoil, and every similar and nuanced parallel was like a gut punch to me), and becomes more of singular thematic character arc with a lot of references thrown in, sometimes for the worse because it stands in for actual story. The transition between second and third act is thus a bit wobbly and dragging as a result of so many visual and story references from other films creaking in to be one story.

But there's a considered stillness here that's bracing, especially as it encompasses everything from its technical aspect (coherent, elegantly non-showy approach to so many technical marvels), character arc (Caesar is one of the great modern character trajectory), to plotting. Two big bitter ironies are in keep with the film's aesthetic and outlook, and they intervene at crucial climatic moments only to confirm what's there since how Rise ignites this chain of events at the start: Nature is a formiddable force, and it always asserts itself heavily when messed with. And the trilogy arrives at a rather muted, relatively small-scaled end that's perfectly appropriate for its character-focus beginning in Caesar, seguing into a hauntingly beautiful and emotional epilogue as his thematic circle comes to a close. 8/10

[Dead & Messed Up]

I have no idea if this was good or not. I'm also not sure if it's actually saying anything meaningful in the ways it seems to think it is. This is a very strange movie. It feels like it carries all the surface details of a thoughtful and good sci-fi.

Probably the film's biggest misstep is that it interrupts Caesar's downward plunge into vengeance to infodump us on Colonel's unmitigated evil. It sets too clean of a line between Caesar's darkened morality and Colonel's jingoistic pseudo-religious cult-of-personality concentration camp fascism. The film isn't interested in exploring parallels between the two and developing those and testing Caesar's limits and seeing how close he can come to matching Colonel (apart from a final-act showdown with a handgun that goes exactly how you think it will). I wonder if the better move would've been to limit our view of the Colonel and avoid giving him sociopathic justifications and made the film more about how Caesar's compatriots have to watch him carefully and bring him back from the moral brink. Switching Caesar into an audience proxy halfway through so we can examine a new world order under a tyrant feels like a good film getting pushed aside by a lesser one.

[More later.]

[Dead & Messed Up]

[More later.]

One of the weirder and less successful subplots was the story behind Nova. It seems at first like she is going to develop a bond with Maurice. Maurice is the one who finds her, consoles her, defends her to Caesar, defies Caesar by bringing her along, rides with her, but then their relationship stops. She's lost her father, so it makes sense she'd find a father sort in Maurice. Instead, Nova has a brief moment with the silverback and the flower, just so that [

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he can fall on a bayonet and die, which just happened without any real emotional meaning to it. You realize that the flower was a last-minute stab at endearing us to him. He's not so grumpy! Boom, dead.

] Then Nova doesn't have much interaction with Maurice for the rest of the film that I can remember. Instead, she sneaks into the camp and gives water and food to Caesar, and he protects her. What does this say about either character, and how does it push where they were before? It's not like this interaction melts Caesar's hatred of people (he really only has hatred for the Colonel anyway). It also doesn't change his opinion much about her, because he never saw her as anything more than inconvenience. And it doesn't change anything about her character, because her role up to then doesn't feature a perspective on Caesar or, indeed, the apes at all. She's a tag-along moppet. (Wouldn't she at the very least be suspicious of the apes that presumably killed her father? Why have them be directly responsible if it doesn't provoke a meaningful distrust?)

EDIT: Holy shit, why didn't they develop the Maurice/Nova relationship more, and have her imprint onto him as a new father? That way, if someone would've realized she was the only one who could go in to help Caesar at the camp, then she and Maurice could actually have a moment where their affection is tested (she probably wouldn't want to leave him, and he definitely wouldn't want her to leave.) I'm not saying milk it for outsized melodrama, but at least that way you can test and strain the relationship they build.

[Pop Trash]

Very good...until it isn't. Matt Reeves needs to be talked about more for being a studio guy that by all means should be a hack, but remarkably isn't. All of the films he has done so far sound like hot garbage on paper, but then wind up being some of the best studio pictures of the year. The work he does here is incredible. Not just the oft discussed special effects, but the formal precision of camera work, including movement and rack focus.

That said, unfortunately the film has some story/script problems. The Deus Ex Avalanche being the worst of the bunch, but also one too many contrivances here-and-there for me to look past. I realize I'm asking for more suspension of disbelief in a talking apes movie, but I can't help but think this is a case of too many cooks in the kitchen re: the story/script esp. during the third act.

[D_Davis]

This is without a doubt the most overrated big blockbuster franchise going right now.

This has now surpassed Mad Max as the best trilogy ever made.

[Dukefrukem]

This has not surpassed the Matrix as the best trilogy ever made.

Fixed. :-D

[D_Davis]

I love the Matrix movies more than most people, but there are way too many issues with them.

[Dead & Messed Up]

This has now surpassed Mad Max as the best trilogy ever made.

Kieslowski just shed a tear. A carefully-framed tear.

[Devlin]

I really like this trilogy. In most instances, by the third film in a series, the quality begins to suffer. But, I believe this one has maintained a steady course and that each film really compliments each other.