Review of War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) by Asher K — 08 Apr 2018

A decent conclusion to Caesar's story.

First off, I have to point out that the CGI in this movie is on another level. It's seriously the best in the industry right now. It's an incredible achievement that elevates this movie from being ok, to being amazing.

The story plays with the same fascinating themes the previous movies in this trilogy played with, which form a great basis for the plot of this movie.

Now despite this, the movie suffers from some unfortunate storytelling cliches and pacing issues. Some of the emotional moments in this movie suffer a lot from pacing issues, so they don't hit you as hard, or you see them coming from a mile away due to clumsy set up. And sometimes it felt like the movie basked in unearned emotional intensity and glory. These moments were heavy with your standard emotional music, and the events themselves were powerful on paper, but the way they were executed here somehow lost them that power. Some of those moments fell kind of flat.

It felt like if I'd seen this movie when I was younger, those moments would hit me a lot harder than they did. I didn't require as much emotional buildup as I probably do now. One particular example is the moment when all the ape workers stop their work because of what Caesar does. Emotional music plays, the imagery is supposed to be very epic and inspiring, but it felt unearned and a bit forced. I'm not sure how to solve this. And it could just be that I wasn't in the right mood for it, but I don't think that's likely, given how hyped I was for this movie.

This movie is long, and it sort of feels unwarranted. There are a lot of things that could've been trimmed down or done more succinctly. Some events should've been spaced out a bit more, others changed entirely (by this I mostly mean the events surrounding Luka's death and characterization).

But all these problems don't take away from the beautiful and unique performances given by the main cast. Caesar, Maurice, Luka, Rocket, Winter, Bad Ape, etc... All memorable, all unique, all beautifully realized and expressed with minimal dialogue. The facial expressions in this truly carried the entire thing. Even Woody Harrelson did a great job. Last but not least is the little girl in this movie. She was adorable and her chemistry with the rest of the apes was perfect. Really well done.

The soundtrack to this movie was very good. Had some interesting and unusual tracks that add to the personality of this movie, which I thought was a nice touch to keep the soundtrack from sounding generic.

And finally, while the basis for this movie was great from a worldbuilding perspective, the plot itself was just ok. The stars of this movie were the character arcs, the performances, and the visuals. Not the storytelling.