Star Wars may have created the modern blockbuster film franchise, however, Planet of the Apes (nine years prior) was truly the first attempt at one. A lubricous concept at first glance, but one which led to a film executed with class, wisdom, warning, and charm. Known most for its unforgettable twist ending, it was written by the combined work of twist-veteran Rod Sterling (creator of The Twilight Zone), and Michael Wilson (writer on The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawerence of Arabia), who was one of the many blacklisted during the McCarthy ‘red scare’ era, and channeled his experiences into some of the film’s best social commentary. Four sequels followed after its massive success (which at the time was not an inevitability), each of varying quality and diminishing returns. Along with them came a cartoon, a live action TV-series, and all kinds of merchandise.
Many attempts were made to make another installment, with the usual conflicts of script and budget issues causing it to form and then melt and reform for more than a decade in development hell. Eventually script #56, after a few rewrites of course, was picked up by Tim Burton at the height of his career. Like all roller coasters however, there has to be a drop, and post-release Tim Butron’s “re-imagining” (a term created to distance the film from the stigma of ‘remakes’, despite essentially being one) was received with poor to mixed reception. Once again, Planet of the Apes faded away from public consciousness.
Another decade passed, and then in 2011, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, a husband and wife writing team, were reading a news story about the downsides of people trying to raise chimpanzees in their home, and in an epiphany they declared: “This is Planet of the Apes!” Soon their script was picked up, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes became a box office and critical success, particularly for the performance of motion capture king Andy Serkis as lead ape Ceasar, giving a literal ‘rise’ to our current saga of Ape films. A sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes came out to even greater success, and it seems nothing is stopping the new series from being a beloved franchise like the original films with War for the Planet of the Apes being called one of the strongest and most powerful endings to a film trilogy in sometime. However, to my shock, I did not come out of War with the energy and love I had (perhaps foolishly) set my expectations for.
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Like Dawn, War for Planet of the Apes treats itself as a epic, a (cue Hollywood buzz word) spectacle; big crowds shots, scope and ambition, powerful directing and acting, and a meaty running time. Yet, as many fans have pointed out, there is no war in the film, despite how the trailers and posters convey Caesar leading an army of apes against what remains of the U.S. military, this never happens in the movie. Instead the tale is about Caesar’s quest for vengeance and eventually redemption when he is faced with an awful tragedy. This is still a strong set up, and like any good sequel it tells a story that plays off the events of the previous film, while also not simply retelling its story. War is grim, it is sad, violent, gritty, and filled with moments that had me doing a double-take at its PG-13 rating on my way out of the theater. Halfway through, the movie attempts to balance this with the introduction to Bad Ape, a new comedic character portrayed by Steve Zahn. Reviews have compared his character and performance to the likes of Jar Jar Binks, and while I find that to be an exaggeration, his humor felt very jarring in the face of the death and gruesome events of the world surrounding him, ultimately making him a distraction every time he opened his loud mouth. The same can’t be said for the rest of the cast thankfully, as Andy Serkis and the supporting group of Apes give fantastic performances that continue to give motion capture technology and performances created through them the recognition they deserve.
No, War‘s main flaw is that too many moments happen because of convenience, happen simply because the story needs them to happen and not out of realistic motive by the characters. Which is disheartening, as it’s an unfortunate flaw that many lesser and soulless Hollywood movies make. It’s not for lack of trying, director Matt Reeves loves the series and put a lot of thought into this story, however there are simply too many of those contrivances that eventually pile up and weigh down the film’s impact, and I have a theory as to why this happened. Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, writers and producers of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, stayed on to write and produce Dawn as well along with Mark Bomback, however, they are simply credited as producers on War, with Bomback and Reeves himself credited with writing the script. Then, I found this quote from Reeves:
“One of the first things that Mark and I did because we had just finished Dawn was that we decided to watch a million movies. We decided to do what people fantasize what Hollywood screenwriters get to do but no one actually does. We got Fox to give us a theater and we watched movie after movie. We watched every Planet of the Apes movie, war movies, westerns, Empire Strikes Back… We just thought, ‘We have to pretend we have all the time in the world,’ even though we had limited time. We got really inspired.”
Articles went on to list the many, many films they watched that eventually inspired a lot of War‘s plot (which becomes rather blatant if you go into the film having seen the movies listed). I gather, that after the success of Dawn, Reeves was given stronger creative control over the next film, and in his quest to create this huge epic finale, Reeves took from various scenes and plot points and moments in these films that inspired him, and tried to connect the dots into a cohesive story. Lost in the absence of contribution from Jaffa and Silver, is the heart that binds these scenes and ideas and inspirations into a meaningful narrative.
War for the Planet of the Apes has elements that are good, even great; the main antagonist ‘The Colonel’ played by Woody Harrelson (for the rather limited screen time they give him) is an interesting character with motives that made me question the morality of both sides of the conflict as humanity’s future looked grim. Yet in the end it falls short of its predecessors and isn’t the fantastic finale that it so frustratingly could have been.
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