Put it up there with The Lord of the Rings, Toy Story, the first Star Wars films, The Godfather, and the Nolan Batman films.
Mark that prediction down now.Īs an entire arc, especially if it ends here, go ahead and, with full confidence, rank these Planet of the Apes prequels among the best movie trilogies of all time. To see Matt Reeves bring his depth to a noirish and detective-centered Batman film is going to be special. No matter how hard it wants to, Michael Bay’s robots can’t come close to something like this. Unlike other fantasy films bent on spectacle and mindless action, every death or fateful decision matters because of the emphasis and commitment that has been this franchise’s foundation. Returning Dawn of the Planet of the Apes screenwriter Mark Bomback teamed with director Matt Reeves to plow a path of raised stakes that are as gripping and intense as they are eloquent and heartrending. The Oscar winner behind Up is the next John Williams and deserves consideration for his second golden statue with this sprawling symphony. This soundtrack may be his best action work to date, flowing between brassy notes that call back to Jerry Goldsmith, ethereal chants, percussive suspense improved from his earlier days on TV’s Lost, and a poignant piano motif that peeks through the bleak canvas of the film. Think more Spartacus than Jurassic World, especially when the sweeping musical score of Michael Giacchino sounds its presence. War for the Planet of the Apes upholds an immense scope and thickened pace built on a methodical undercurrent of powerful dramatic gravity. I promise it won’t because emotional complexity takes over hits you like a ton of bricks. War may lead this film’s title, but the action quotient is low, should that satiation matter. In their tracking through the snowy winter, Caesar’s party gains a pair of strays, a mute human girl nicknamed Nova (Amiah Miller) and a feeble-minded zoo chimp who calls himself Bad Ape (Steve Zahn). Joining Caesar with the hopes of preventing a suicide mission of vengeance are Rocket ( Kong: Skull Island lead Terry Notary) and the sage orangutan Maurice (Karin Konoval), his two closest confidantes and fellow Gen-Sys originals.
When one of McCullough’s incursions leads to a tragic loss for Caesar, the tribal leader chimpanzee sends his broken people away to sojourn for safer and greener pastures while he turns his gaze of revenge towards the Colonel. He controls his own cache of turncoat apes, including lowland gorilla and former Koba sympathizer Red (Ty Olsson). The tip of the military’s spear of obsession is a fierce faction of soldiers led by Colonel McCullough, played with straight cold steel by Woody Harrelson. Militarization has mobilized the surviving humans to push Caesar and his apes further into seclusion within the northern California wilderness. Two years have passed since the events of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes where the failed mutiny of Koba (Toby Kebbell, returning in visions) in San Francisco severed any threads and chance between human and ape coexistence. War for the Planet of Apes is a full-bodied epic of glory and pain that matches and then exceeds the moving importance and heart this rebooted franchise has established in two previous knockout films. A transformation of empathy like that is downright miraculous. Only Pixar has found a way to make us love something that strongly which really isn’t there.
Think about how that was achieved with digital characters emoting through coding and pixels. That’s like finding a way to root for Sauron and hoping Frodo dies before reaching Mordor. Think about how challenging that is for a moment. Our hearts and allegiances swayed from rooting for the madness of our own mankind to the superior traits of humanity exhibited by Caesar and his ape brethren.
The change became a reversal of what side of the conflict garnered your attention and investment in this dystopian science fiction landscape. Through the commanding lead performance of Andy Serkis as Caesar, a significant shift occurred when Rise of the Planet of the Apes evolved into Dawn of the Planet of the Apes three years ago.