Review of War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) by Oliver G — 20 Jan 2018

Clumsily playing with concepts heavier than it can handle. From the beginning onwards the films dresses itself in so much pretense that made it hard to take seriously. Woody Harrelson enters the story somewhat out of the blue, as a mysterious remnant of the remains of the US army, and proceeds to be, despite his class acting - an excited childs caricatured imagination version of 'big military bad guy' that couldn't be taken seriously.

While the effects are top notch, it's just not enough to rely on them to make something a 'good film'. Throughout the film, it approaches topics of utmost seriousness- sometimes hitting the analogies a little on the nose, and then treats them as if a group of teenage boys trying to write 'the most hard hitting movie ever' were handling them and it was this heavy-handed approach that gave no respect and care to the topics the film was crowbarring in to feel 'serious' that made this frankly, deeply unenjoyable.