War for the Planet of the Apes - Movie Review

Who's In It?

Amiah Miller, Steve Zahn, Woody Harrelson, and Andy Serkis


What's It About?

When the American remnants army led by The Colonel attack the apes at their home, Cesar sets out for revenge in a western style posse - joined by the most blatant boardroom characters ever created.

Any Good?

It opens on a Vietnam-like attack on a monkey fort, which looks fantastic and transitions absolutely perfectly into an almost horror sneak invasion on the main fort by the humans and it looks incredible - all throughout the film. 

The movie handles the characters of the main apes so well it's easy to see them as the humans (that's the point, but they pull it off REALLY well) - that is, until the shove the offending boardroom characters in. 

The movie gets extremely heavy at points, touching on things like crucifixion, euthanasia and concentration camps - but even in incredible scenes like these they focus is instantly ripped away to what a child who has no reason to be there beyond her first scene (and somehow always fixes everything)and a monkey that tried way too hard to be funny at the worst possible times.

These characters are a slap in the face of what this movie tried and  still somehow mostly succeeded to be - a great dark western redemption meets Schindler's List. They just pull any power a scene has and kills the atmosphere to keep the studio execs biggest fear away - a non-child friendly summer blockbuster.  

I was so disappointed by the addition of the cliche deus ex machina child and comic relief - they were very clearly jammed in to appease someone because both of their entire reasons to be are explained anyway and render them pointless. 

With all that said, the rest of the characters are fantastic and so is the story - a testament to how good the film is and could have been.

Rating: