War for the Planet of the Apes (Review)

'War for the Planet of the Apes' is the third installment of the rebooted science fiction franchise Planet of the Apes. This film stars Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Steve Zahn and Amiah Miller. This film is directed by Matt Reeves.

Rebooting a franchise from the 60s is an ambitious task, no matter how big the franchise, but these new films take a step further then just rebooting the franchise, these films also start a completely new story which is far different from the original film, but is also faithful to the source material's theme of the trials of humanity.

The first two films of this new series are great and can truly stand on their own, but now with this third installment, this series is now a legacy trilogy similar to 'The Dark Knight' and the 'Lord of the Rings' films.  While I don't think this film or the other two are "outstanding" and flawless, they are all brilliantly crafted and executed. This film does not disappoint. Everything you want out of a 'Planet of The Apes' film is in this film and without any unnecessary pandering to the audience.

Like 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' this film is more focused on the apes and further explores how they have evolved since the last film and shows the audience through subtitles and body language how they interact with each other, which is quite a risk considering half of these films are actually sub-titled, not many blockbusters would dream of trusting their audience to read. Without a doubt this film is one of the most intelligent blockbuster films in the past few years. The tone throughout this entire film is somber and foreboding as the emotion of the film is centered on Caesar's grief and anger. It's impossible to not relate to Caesar's feelings as the film presents these emotional themes clearly and in a beautiful manner which is more expected in an art-house film, but works brilliantly here with the help from Andy Serkis' powerful performance and the extremely talented CG animators (The academy really does need to consider motion capture performances). Woody Harrelson is always a reliable actor, especially in the art of menace, but with the efforts from the screenwriters, the villain he portrays is multi dimensional and frighteningly relatable.

The director Matt Reeves, is in my opinion; one of the best directors currently working in Hollywood. This film and 'Dawn' really show off Reeves' talents as a director who can combinate large scale action sequences with small emotional silence without even a slight sense of jarring. His name belongs with the likes of Christopher Nolan for creating Blockbusters which are crafted like thought provoking independent films. Not only is each shot beautifully framed, but also serves for effective symbolism which can be interpreted to religious and historic iconography, which makes me want to view it again for further analysis.

Michael Giacchino provides another fantastic score with his style of using unique and unorthodox instruments to composes his themes. The score is the backbone of all the emotion in this film and being a war film there is a lot of emotional dread and consequence, Giacchino score can make you feel the dread for the apes and the humans, as well as making you fight back the tears and every time the score can make you feel something on demand.

I have a nic-pic with this film which is to do with Steve Zahn's character 'Bad Ape' who is the comic relief of the film. While he is more complex than the average comedy relief character and is again played splendidly by Zahn, I could not help, but feel a little tired of his antics. I would not go as far to say that the character is annoying, in fact for the most part I enjoyed the character and found him amusing, but during one occasion the comedic relief became a little too much for me, but he served a good purpose as the audience I was with were getting lots of laughs from him.

'War of the Planet of the Apes' is not only one of my favorite films of the summer, but it is also one of my favorite films of the year and while I would not consider this film to be perfect, I am looking forward to seeing it again as soon as I can.

Rating: 9/10


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