War for the Planet of the Apes

It's been a while since I saw this but I reckon I've made up my mind about it. It shouldn't have taken so long to decide that it's not bad, but there you have it. Of the trilogy, it's probably the weakest in my opinion. None of the character building of ROTPOTA (apes, of course, not humans) and none of the power struggle between Caeser and Koba in DOTPOTA. And for all its nicely shot vistas and the odd battle here and there, the Golden Gate Bridge sequence in Rise is still the best thing across the trilogy. One of the best action sequences ever, I'd venture.

But I said this was not bad so some credit must be given. It goes without saying the CGI is first class, improved yet again from the previous two films. As seen in Rogue One, getting humans out of the 'uncanny valley' is still a hefty task but they've got the apes sorted with this one. There's an interesting way of getting to the Charlton Heston Planet of the Apes. Cornelius and Nova (characters from the original film) are introduced, though the timelines are way out. They're either planning to rejig said timeline of they're just nerd references. Towards the end it goes all Great 'Ape' Escape and anything that pays homage to The Great Escape gets a few free hits.

On that, War shows its influences fairly overtly - a bit of revenge western, a touch of Apocalypse Now but the main touchstone is the biblical epic - Caeser as a Moses/Jesus hybrid (Jemoses?) leading his people to the 'promised land' and sacrificing himself for them as well. I'm not sure if they started out making a biblical allegory for this trilogy but that's where it's pretty much ended. So, 'War' in the title is a bit misleading, as it's much more of the above than a pure war film. Not a lot of battling going on, at least between apes and humans. Caeser's inner conflict with Koba, that stretches back to Dawn, is the main antagonist here, even if Woody Harrelson's Colonel wants a piece of the action. Harrelson comes over all Kurtz, shaved head and maniacal stares, and his ending is nicely done but the simians are the stars here.

Apes together. Strong.


I thought I'd start something new here. Films that are similar or have some connection to the posted film. Let's see how it goes.

See also:

Aside from the ones mentioned above, there are a couple of John Wayne films that share some threads with War for the Planet of the Apes. Red River (1948) directed by Howard Hawks and The Searchers (1956) directed by John Ford are revenge-themed westerns and top films to boot.