War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) | Movie News & Review

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WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (2017) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

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WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (2017) movie

Genre | Science Fiction

Classification | M

Running time | 140 minutes

Released | 27 July 2017

cast

Andy Serkis ... Caesar
Woody Harrelson ... The Colonel
Steve Zahn ... Bad Ape
Karin Konoval ... Maurice
Amiah Miller ... Nova
Terry Notary ... Rocket
Ty Olsson ... Red Donkey
Michael Adamthwaite ... Luca
Toby Kebbell ... Koba
Gabriel Chavarria ... Preacher
Judy Greer ... Cornelia

director

Matt Reeves

writer

Mark Bomback ... (written by) &
Matt Reeves ... (written by)

Rick Jaffa ... (based on characters created by) &
Amanda Silver ... (based on characters created by)

Pierre Boulle ... (suggested by the novel "La planète des singes") (uncredited)

cinematographer

Michael Seresin

music

Michael Giacchino

film editor

William Hoy ... film editor
Stan Salfas ... film editor

box office result

Worldwide $490,664,238

Australia $8,362,512

North America $146,880,162

the best dialogue

Caesar: APES TOGETHER STRONG!

The Colonel: All of human history has lead to this moment. The irony is we created you. And nature has been punishing us ever since. This is our last stand. And if we lose... it will be a Planet of Apes.

The Colonel: Have you finally come to save your apes?
Caesar: I came for you.
The Colonel: For me?
[pause]
The Colonel: My God. Look at your eyes. Almost human.
[pause]
The Colonel: How'd you know I was here?
Caesar: I was told... you were coming. That more soldiers from the north were will be joining you here.
The Colonel: Joining me here?
Caesar: To finish us off... for good.
[pause]
The Colonel: Who told you that?
[pause]
The Colonel: Ok. Let's go.

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (2017) MOVIE IMAGES

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WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (2017) STORY SYNOPSIS

Caesar (Andy Serkis) and his apes are forced into a deadly conflict with an army of humans led by a ruthless colonel (Woody Harrelson). After the apes suffer unimaginable losses, Caesar wrestles with his darker instincts and begins his own mythic quest to avenge his kind. As the journey finally brings them face to face, Caesar and the colonel are pitted against each other in an epic battle that will determine the fate of both of their species and the future of the planet.

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (2017) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty | Review date 24 July 2017
Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

WAR FOR THE PLANETS OF THE APES is a satisfying conclusion to the reboot Planet of the Apes movies that kicked off with Rise of the Planet of the Apes in 2011. This third entry doesn’t quite reach the heights of its 2014 predecessor, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, but WAR delivers some of the most interesting character interaction between Andy Serkis’s Caesar and his human antagonists to date. His foe this time is Woody Harrelson’s “Colonel”; a rogue military commander who has made it his mission to rid the world of Apes before a new strain of the Simian virus, responsible for the downfall of mankind at the end of the 2011 movie, robs the remaining survivors of their humanity.

Matt Reeves returned to direct this third film and also penned the story with DAWN co-writer Mark Bomback. The new movie benefits from this creative continuity, as Reeves is not prepared to serve up a variation of the formula that made the second film a huge commercial success, making over $700 million at the worldwide box office. In this outing, Reeves and Bomback zero in on Caesar. The Ape leader is now developed to a point that he is as close to human as he possibly can be. It’s a credit to the Weta visual effects artists who have developed motion-capture technology that films performances in such great detail, and subsequently animates the actor’s face into something else entirely, that the viewer registers what they are seeing as “real”. WAR elevates the Ape detail to a new standard, providing Reeves the opportunity to tell this new film almost entirely from the Apes’ perspective.

While Reeves must be applauded for his attempt to make WAR a different film in tone to the first and second, the finale falls flat as the anticipated conflict between the Apes and Humans is relatively low-key and almost entirely reliant upon Caesar rousing his fellow Apes to take a stand not just for him but for their own survival. There’s a definite nod to both Apocalypse Now and The Great Escape, but WAR falls just a little short of the emotional response the makers must have been aiming for. With that said, there’s a lot of great moments that set this final film head and shoulders above the majority of Science Fiction cinema released over recent years. Besides Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson does a solid job as The Colonel. It could have been easy for Harrelson to chew through the scenery in this role, but he shows a remarkable amount of restraint given it seems to have been written solely for him to do his best Marlon Brando “Colonel Kurtz” impression from Apocalypse Now. Karin Konoval returns as Caesar’s trusted companion Maurice, while Steve Zahn gets to steal scene after scene as “Bad Ape”. Young Amiah Miller makes her debut as Nova, a nod by Reeves and Bomback to close-the-loop and provide continuity all the way back to the original Charlton Heston 1968 Planet of the Apes movie.

Behind the scenes, Director of Photography Michael Seresin and Composer Michael Giacchino deserve mention. Seresin, who has just turned 75, is one of the true artists in his field and has been DOP or Cinematographer for some truly wonderful films in the Fantastique realm; including Angel Heart, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, as well as Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Likewise Giacchino. His name appears on so many movies these days that his output seems superhuman. The great thing about his music is that it never feels like it’s repeating itself. The only movies where he has done this is the rebooted STAR TREK movies but quite deliberately. Not so with WAR. Giacchino provided the score for DAWN and he could have quite easily gone back to that film and borrowed for this one, but he doesn’t. WAR has its style with just a very slight nod to the musical cues established by Jerry Goldsmith’s score for 1968 movie. Which is really where Matt Reeves aims to point this final movie. In the 1968 version, Caesar was a mythological figure revered by the Apes. WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES shows how the legend came to be.