Bullet Points: War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

I have always been a fan of the concept behind the Planet of the Apes films. I can remember watching them as a kid and trying my best to replicate any and all of the scenes with my action figures. I had all of the movies on VHS and even though it was never my favorite at the time, Battle for the Planet of the Apes always felt like it had the most potential to me with my war-like obsessions as a kid. It never came close to scratching all of my itches but this reboot series is certainly not afraid of being violent.

Synopsis: After the apes suffer unimaginable losses, Caesar wrestles with his darker instincts and begins his own mythic quest to avenge his kind.

• The Simian Flu: War starts just 15 years since the Simian Flu killed most of humanity and left the rest of them fighting for survival against the virus and the intelligent apes it created. The battles at the end of Dawn of the Plant of the Apes caused the humans to send out a distress call that turned The Colonel (Woody Harrelson) onto the ape herd like a rapid dog. He uses tactics to take out the apes and has been consistently looking for Caesar for two years.
• Ambush and mercy: For a bunch of “hardened” soldiers, the men under the Colonel don’t know shit about tactics. They stomp through the jungle and then when they are finally close enough to smell the enemy, they launch and all-out attack on them from a terrible position without having any knowledge of the size of the enemy force. It’s one of the things in this movie that jumps out at me several times. The absolute ineptitude of the human soldiers and the sheer luck of the apes to escape at all times. We learn way more about Caesar after this attack since they come to the aid of their fellow apes and then as he shows mercy to the captured humans by releasing them. I’m sure that won’t come back to bite him….

• Infiltration: Shortly after the return of Caesar to this camp and the subsequent return to normal for them, everything is thrown into chaos as their crib is infiltrated by The Colonel and he kills Caesar’s wife and son. As that guy on the internet would say, “Unforgivable!” Caesar shows up just in time to get a good luck as Woody Harrelson hops into a conveniently located waterfall with his rope in it. It’s amazing how easy it is for everyone in this film to sneak around. Maybe the Simian Flu effected their other senses as well.
• Vengeful Apes: It’s time for the Ape herd to move along now that they’ve been found by The Colonel. Caesar rightfully believes that he’ll return to kill them all but he runs off on a revenge mission with a handful of his closest pals. This is the point in the film where it really started to drag for me. Scene after scene, it just felt like they ran out of script and instead just shot Andy Serkis in his motion capture suit walking around acting foolish. I should have been questioning whether or not The Colonel’s actions made Caesar into an “animal” hell-bent on destruction but instead he just continued to be a nice guy throughout the rest of the film.

• The Camp: As you might expect, the Ape herd gets found by The Colonel and held captive in his border wall prison, of sorts. Caesar blames himself since he wasn’t there and was off trying to avenge his family. Whoops! No matter, as we’ve seen before, sneaking into places is very easy in this world and we spend the next 35 minutes or so watching Caesar get tortured, strung up on a big X, and clumsily build a wall. The Colonel and his men are attempting to rebuild the wall because another army of humans is on their way to take out the psycho.
• Escape: Like I said, the movie drags and shit that should’ve taken 10 minutes is stretched to twice that and it makes for an anti-climactic finish. Sure, the other army shows up with their attack helicopters and there is a big battle at the wall, but it all happens while the apes are escaping through the underground tunnels that just so happen to be there. I don’t even need to bring up how unfrozen the ground was that they dug through or that there was only 1 guard watching all of the apes. I think you understand at this point where my head was.

• Just finish it: The Colonel and I were on the same page as this film just refused to die. The big battle comes to an abrupt end and the joy of victory is even shorter as another act of God covers yet another escape for the Ape herd. The thought of a Col Kurtz-like Woody Harrelson and a war against a vengeful Caesar meant this one could have been an absolute blast. Sadly, beyond the look of it, I just couldn’t find myself invested.

The Verdict: There are stretches of War for the Planet of the Apes where it feels like absolutely nothing is happening. It’s just incredible motion capture work and performances by the actors to move and act like apes while not really doing much of anything. It’s impossible not to marvel at how cool the apes look and move in the film but I just wish there was more going on. It’s also strange that for once there wasn’t a single human with any redeeming qualities in the film (except for the kid). It’s just bad human after bad human trying their best to one up each other. The movie really started with a bang and I was hoping it would carry through the film but the long drag in the middle and the weak and drawn out finale didn’t do it for me. Ape lovers will still get enjoyment but I think it might be the weakest of the reboot series.