Review of War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) by Stanley C — 29 Dec 2017

War for the Planet of the Apes has very intelligent film components in terms of directing, acting and writing. What makes WAR of the PotA so amazing is that the movie is able to tell the story without having to rely on dialogue all the time. The suspense and action sequences and special effects are groundbreaking and the movie doesn't have to build up any dialogue in the form of complicated long sentences to tell an interesting story, cause here it's all about just apes and humans fighting each other now that all trust is lost. The apes talk out very simple things in rough ape-y voices and their goals are really simple: to just survive and find a good home to survive in. The humans on the other hand want the apes dead to regain their domination of the earth, and while I get that Woody Harrelson's character Colonel who is the movie's villain is a lot like Trump wanting a giant wall to prevent fluxes of "dirty" immigrant people coming in with their diseases, I love the irony in the scene where the Alpha Omega men play Star-Spangled Banner then charge towards the apes and put them to work in chains, as I always thought the Banner once was a symbol of freedom and liberty. ONCE.

I also really liked the movie's Tarzan-like component of adding in a human girl, Nova, who tags along with the apes, it just makes the movie more ironic since girls are usually stereotyped into hating associating with wild animals. But Nova is an exception, because she's a wild, dumb animal. And don't forget about Bad Ape, he's a great character and a finely arrived comic relief to the trilogy who came just in time.

I don't think it's okay that everyone hates the Avalanche at the end of the movie and call it a cheap "Deus X Machina". The Avalanche was a perfect metaphor for a test of skills to see whether apes or humans can survive. The apes pass cause they were able to climb up trees, or rather "run up" while the infected humans in white uniforms cannot do any form of vertical running and they spent their entire lives being softened with all their technology such as Humvees and guns. Tough for them, but it's the Law of Nature - "Survival of the Fittest". The apes already spent 2 hours and 2 minutes of the movie fighting off the human army that is healthy and clean from the virus, did the viewers just want the apes to fight another battle against the other human army infected with the virus? Perhaps the infected human soldiers that survived should be saved for a 4th Planet of Apes movie where Maurice is the main character.

All in all, War for the Planet of the Apes is one of the BEST threequels ever made and is even better than the first two movies in the trilogy and one of the best American movies ever made. Just like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, WAR successfully satirizes the current foreign policy crisis in the United States because while DAWN draws parallels to Americans arguing whether to use diplomatic solution OR military action to deal with their Middle Eastern enemies, WAR draws parallels to Trump's wall building plans and ISIS trying to invade democratic Western nations in order to conquer vanishing natural resources like food, water and land. So for this, I give 5 stars to War for Planet of the Apes, one of the rare 2017 movies to get the perfect 5-stars from me.