War for the Planet of the Apes is misnamed third movie in the Planet of the Apes reboot series. It’s an uneven movie that starts great and then takes a turn and winds up a pretty good flick in the end. Kind of a disappointment only in that the previous two movies were stronger but also because the first half of this one was so good.
It has been fifteen years since the plague that wiped out humanity and the colony of apes led by Caesar are now in an… err… guerrilla war with the human military forces called in at the end of the second flick. Caesar has to deal with human military patrols and his desire to stop the war that his own friend and fellow ape Kubo started. Unfortunately, the Colonel (played by Woody Harrelson) has no particular interest in making peace since apes are so much stronger than humans and they are pretty smart too. It’s a war for dominance of the world and very existence of humanity.
The first hour of this movie is so strong. From great and frightening battle scenes to just really well acted CGI apes, I can say the movie does little wrong except maybe for Caesar’s motivations. They feel a little Hollywood movie and lead the movie to some of its problems.
And before I talk about the less good, a shout out to the simply amazing apes. There are barely any human actors in this movie – it’s all CGI apes all the time and they are marvelous. I thought they were good last time, but now their ability to emote is unparalleled. Especially since the camera is often right on their faces, taking up the full screen. Andy Serkis motion capping for Caeser is, of course, as good as he ever is but Steve Zhan playing a new ape (called “Bad Ape”) is incredibly expressive. Someone needs an Oscar… if not the actors, at least for visual FX.
The humans are the villains and the movie has nothing particularly interesting to say about humanity. In the previous movies, humans were good, humans were bad… apes were good, apes were bad. There was nuance in the script and acting. In this, people are just bad. And maybe the movie is saying something surface-level about Us vs. Them mentalities and building walls using slave labor… but it’s muddled and shallow to the point that I’m not sure they just weren’t tossing in bad guys and a battle just to end the flick on some big explosions.
The great big battle sequence near the end is between three factions: one is the cliched and derivative humans led by Woody Harrelson, one is completely faceless, and one just wants to survive and avoid the fight altogether. And the apes involvement in this is defanged by a deus ex machina that lets them off the hook as far as showing the good guys being too vicious in a Hollywood movie. I thought it was cheap.
The movie’s script also includes at least five clever Easter eggs / references to tie it into either the original Heston movie or a remake of that movie. Unlike many movies, these references are subtle and will only be noticed by people who saw the 1968 original. They don’t stick as obvious sequel-baiting – yelling “I’m gonna have a sequel! Look at me!” Apparently they are saying this is the last movie and that’d be unfortunate since I don’t like these movies being direct prequels to the Heston flick (it doesn’t work story-wise).
Anyhow, I wrote a lot of negatives for a movie that I overall actually think is pretty good. All these negatives are only tossed at the movie since it starts strong and is a sequel to two very smart sci-fi action movies. This movie deserved better yet is ultimately better than a lot of Summer flicks. I’d recommend it, especially if you’ve seen the previous two films.
Score: 85