In an unexpected fashion, the reinvention of the classic
Planet of the Apes franchise has shown that Hollywood can make better remakes
and sequels. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes had raised the stakes in terms of quality
even better than its original source materials. I personally love Rise (the
first film) and I adore Dawn (the second film) very much. So expectations are quite high for this
final sequel of Caesar's story.
War for the Planet of the Apes picks up 2 years after the
events of Dawn (the second film), where Caesar and his fellow apes desperately
tries to find a new place and escape an impending doom of a war that claimed
many lives of apes. Consumed by anger and grief for his loss, the once noble
and empathetic Caesar decides to leave his fellow apes and his role as a leader
in search for revenge. Over the course of the film, Caesar needs to face his
own demons with flashes of Koba haunts his very soul. The movie is about mercy and
forgiveness, let go of hatred, showing us that ultimately it’s our choices that
define who we are.
The CGI rendered and performance-captured apes are superb
and top-notch like its predecessors. The various expressions of the apes are
beautifully captured and shown on screen. The inclusion of a new ape character,
Bad Ape serves as comic relief, by providing a few laughable moments here and
there. The new human character, a mute orphan girl, Nova (despite origins
unknown and no further character developments provided, based on the character
of the same name in the source material) provides some emotional scenes for
this sombre, tense and heavy film.
However, hard pressed to say, the final sequel proved to be
rather disappointing. Although the same director (Matt Reeves) is at helm for
this final sequel and he’s the co-writer with one of the screenwriters for the two previous films (Mark
Bomback), it seems that the current script lacks the compelling emotional elements that
made its predecessors great, which might be contributed by Rick Jaffa and Amanda
Silver (co-producers, but not co-writers for this final sequel this time). The
second act, which is the constant chasing, imprisonment and subsequent prison break
is rather slow and draggy, which might bore some audiences.
The trailers, posters and movie title is rather misleading…We
don’t get to see a full blown-out epic, climactic ‘war’ battle between the apes
and humans. It’s not really considered as a war if one side doesn’t stand a
chance to fight against the other. The off-screen death of two characters that
is very important to our main hero, Caesar, which triggers the path of revenge
for him, is rather abrupt and sudden.
The new villain, Colonel is not as compelling or impactful
as Koba, Caesar’s mutinous second in command. The film tries to portray him as
the evil big boss, but the story doesn’t show like so. The colonel does explain
how he becomes who he is now, but the film supposed to show us the horror, not
telling us.
All in all, despite its numerous shortcomings, the trilogy
successfully develops Caesar as one of the most compelling, fascinating heroes
of recent cinema history. His moral leadership, honorable values and wisdom represents the best of humanity. The kindness that the orangutan, Maurice and the other apes show Nova stands in stark contrast to the Colonel's behavior. Not the best film in the series but it’s enough to
warrant a screening for those who wanted a conclusion of Caesar’s story.
Movie
|
Rating
|
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
|
8.0/10
|
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
|
9.5/10
|
War for the Planet of the Apes
|
7.0/10
|
