written by Mark Bomback and Matt Reeves
2014's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes held a unique place in the summer blockbuster scene. Despite certain issues such as uninteresting human characters, it was nuanced and ambitious in ways that few of its contemporaries were. It depicted a tense situation between the titular apes and the world of men, and offered both positive and negative actors on each side, and boasted a lot of depth in its characterization and ambition in its narrative which are still rarely seen in films of this budget. It was a dark, somber, and long blockbuster, but it paid off with narrative profundity even if it wasn't always much fun.
The final installment of this trilogy, War for the Planet of the Apes, is still impressive for its sympathetic characterization and soaring ambition, and it's easily the most technically accomplished film of the trilogy, but somewhere between the two films, something was lost. War is a film which strives for narrative depth while shying away from anything which might compromise its black-and-white morality, and while the film is still gorgeous and more exciting than its predecessor, it still takes itself too seriously to justify its simplicity.
It ain't bad, but I wish I saw what the rest of you see in this.
After the failure of negotiations in the last film, Caesar (Andy Serkis) is seeking to lead his people away from the forest and towards somewhere new where they would be safe from the threat of humanity. However, Caesar's plans change when the Colonel (Woody Harrelson) murders his family, inspiring him to seek revenge. When attempting to leave, he's joined by Maurice (Karin Konoval), Rocket (Terry Notary), and Luca (Michael Adamthwaite), who want to ensure he makes it back alive, and along their journey they pick up a mute little girl named Nova (Amiah Miller) and an escaped zoo chimpanzee who calls himself Bad Ape (Steve Zahn).
The film's most obvious strength is in its worldbuilding. From the first scene, we see how some of the apes aligned with Koba have now defected to the human side, now derogatorily labeled "donkeys" and generally disrespected by the humans fighting alongside them. The film builds a sense that humanity is reeling from the effects of the simian flu, which has now developed further side effects in those it hasn't killed, and we see strains of human supremacism within the U.S. army through writing on helmets and the ideology of the Colonel himself. The mere existence of Bad Ape suggests that the simian flu may have spread beyond the movie's community of apes, and that introduces some interesting potential that the film doesn't really go into.
War also stands out as one of the more visually striking blockbusters of this summer, taking place in beautifully photographed winter landscapes. Nearly every shot is absolutely stunning, and complementing this is the apes themselves, who have never looked better. The motion capture is intricate and realistic, and the apes' expressive faces and soulful eyes allow the cast's genuinely phenomenal performances to shine through. Serkis is once again fantastic as Caesar, keeping the character sympathetic while also selling his violent side. The rest of the motion cast is phenomenal as well, especially Konoval as Maurice, who provides a thoughtful counterpoint to Caesar's single-minded vengefulness.
Even more stunning is the music by Michael Giacchino, which lends the film an operatic flow which makes it all the more engrossing. The soundtrack is omnipresent, and the film is edited in such a way that it feels like it's matching the music's tempo, creating an almost poetic flow which comes damn close to creating moments of genuine poignancy, and even succeeds in many of the earlier scenes. The film is patient, spending most of its running time building up to its final confrontation, dwelling on the interactions between its well-drawn characters. Unfortunately, the film's narrative grows simpler as it progresses, so these moments of poetry find less and less emotional resonance to justify their audiovisual splendor.
The film doesn't contain a lot of action, but what action is there is visceral and intense. War repurposes a lot of iconography from earlier war and revenge films, with iconography evoking Vietnam and even the Holocaust, creating the feeling of history repeating itself once again, reinforcing the series' cynical worldview. It's rarely subtle, as at one point "Ape-ocalypse Now" appears in wall graffiti, but it's perhaps the most effective of the film's thematic elements. On a lighter note, one escape sequence in the third act is genuinely thrilling and sees the film achieve some much-needed levity through the simple joys of watching our heroes finding a creative solution to a bad situation.
Indeed, War comes a little closer than Dawn did to being conventionally fun, as the new characters, Nova and Bad Ape, both show conventionally crowd-pleasing elements creeping in. Nova is cute to the point that it sometimes comes across as cloying, and Bad Ape swings wildly between hilarious and deeply annoying. All of these lighter elements hint at a film burdened by the expectations of a summer blockbuster, and as fun as they can be, they almost always feel incongruous with the somber tone of the rest of the film. For instance, Bad Ape's horrific backstory of abuse is an awkward fit with his goofy, stammering mannerisms, and the more comedic this character becomes, the more he stands out in the film's cold, brutal world.
The worst of these conventional elements is the film's morality, which eschews the shades of gray the story begs for in favour of a much more simple black-and-white conflict between the good Caesar and the bad Colonel. A twist in the final act undermines the darker aspects of Caesar's character arc to the extent that much of it simply rings hollow. By the end, Caesar isn't just seeking revenge for a wrong done to him but actively working to save a great many apes from a concentration camp, and that makes all of the questions about the morality of revenge fall considerably flat. Also hurting this is the character of the Colonel, who despite a sad backstory and vaguely understandable motivations remains cartoonishly villainous, deflating much of the film's potential nuance.
At the same time, Woody Harrelson adds a lot through his stoic, contemplative performance. Nearly everything the Colonel does follows a period of silent contemplation, where Harrelson furrows his eyebrows and stares at the subject of his interest - usually Caesar - as if processing whatever new information has come up. Excepting a single scene where he reveals his motivations and backstory, however, the Colonel never comes to any conclusion which doesn't include some act of brutality, and while at one point Caesar influences him in a way which threatens to give him extra nuance, he spends the rest of the film stacking one detestable act on top of another in a way which feels increasingly empty.
And that's disappointing because the lack of sympathetic human characters in War feels like it underserves the nuances which the film seems to be working towards. The Colonel is our only inroad to the humans' plight, and despite a few occasions where Maurice calls for Caesar to stop the cycle of violence, we never get the sense that Caesar's vengeance might be unjust. By the end, there's little ambiguity to anything Caesar has done. By seeking vengeance, he saved those apes in the concentration camp, and that feels like a betrayal of the complexity which this series has demonstrated.
Which isn't to say that War for the Planet of the Apes doesn't still have its merits. It's beautiful, operatic, thrilling, and ambitious, and even with its black-and-white morality it's still more complex than the vast majority of summer blockbusters. It's a film which strives to be more than a mere cash-in sequel but can't quite escape the confines of major franchise filmmaking, and for all that's admirable about it, each of its successes comes with a tradeoff. It's grim yet simplistic, striving for depth that it never quite achieves, and it's weighed down by conventionality in all the wrong places. But at least it reaches for the stars. At least it's beautiful, operatic, thrilling, and ambitious. Caesar's story may not go out with a bang, but it's a story which was worth telling.
7/10
+ Engrossing, operatic flow.
+ Utterly gorgeous music and cinematography.
+ Admirably ambitious.
- Facile narrative mostly undercuts its main themes.
- Cartoonish main antagonist.
- Lighter elements are incongruous and uneven.
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Todd Throndson
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