War for the Planet of the Apes

Don’t expect any real “war” – that takes about four minutes. The film is a slow, sensitively narrated “wandering” drama focusing on diverse characters and their emotional interactions, of course in perfectly designed natural settings. As in the last The Jungle Book, the motion capture performances of monkeys’ faces completely overshadow the live actors (including Woody Harrelson). The details of rendering their skin/fur are again a bit more technologically advanced than in previous Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Incredible. (07/12/2017)

My disappointment with the last film was so great that I avoided the trailers for the third one, feeling their uselessness. However, Reeves was either kept sedated or some brave producer really believed him, and I can hardly resist getting excited about arguably the boldest summer blockbuster in years. The opening action is still very forced, but then for the next hour, four monkeys, whose CGI rendering is a CGI reality approaching perfection, track a military unit through a snowy landscape at a slow but cinematically precise and deliberate pace. All the while, they are driven by the best possible cinematic engine, i.e., the desire for revenge. It was clear that all would be forgiven and I just prayed that it would keep going like this, as Michael Giacchino conducts the minimalist retro score and the cinematography flirts with the turn of the sixth and seventh decades of the last century. And that’s not all. Woody Harrelson varies the best possible creation of khaki madness spewed from the heart of darkness, and after the famous dialogue with Caesar, the film jumps on the dark wave of the erratic nature of desired good and the lure of ambiguous evil to bring it to an epic end. Even amidst the cheesy interludes and pathos of heroic self-sacrifice, it still keeps a grim face that relies on heroes who are no longer amusing apes who can do funny gestures, but solid figures whose emerging evolutionary supremacy is not to be doubted. (07/13/2017)

A fantastic end to the trilogy. Smart, emotional, it grabs your heart. After all we have been with Caesar right from the very beginning. Reeves skillfully depicts a conflict between the fanatic colonel and the main hero, causing a powerful denouement. The special effects are absolutely top-notch, the acting convincing. Beautiful music. (07/23/2017)

An apocalypse (in terms of structure and "the negative character" and even annoyingly frequent visual references) incorporated into the ending of the trilogy, which in turn is incorporated into all the story lines, characters and themes based on the original Monkey Planet through a torn inner struggle for Caesar's soul. Yes, it's overcomplicated, and despite it´s not the Conrad´s Heart of Darkness in apes version, the resulting "Ape-pocalypse Now / ape Logan" is a surprisingly faded, free from any action (there's no war, and even taking about talking about fight or dispute would be an exaggeration. This is the Bridge on the River Kw... Planet of the Apes), whose many obvious drawbacks "but" (all humans are stupid, unreasonably long footage, unbalanced pace, deus ex machine ending) don´t really matter thanks to emotions, captivating Serkis, enchanting first half and "invisible" CGI effects, which are not here to impress. (07/12/2017)

The best trilogy since The Dark Knight? Undoubtedly! The final installment of the trilogy is much more of a depressing drama than an action spectacle, which is a bit of a bummer (I think the conclusion of a trilogy would deserve a pumped-up action inferno), but the upside is that even without "war" the apes work flawlessly. The CGI is a few levels above anything else we've seen so far, the emotions work better here than in any emotional blackmail film, and the pace hurtles forward faster than a draft horse. Another big upside is the villain, played by Woody Harrelson, who fits the bill perfectly. By the end the whole theater was crying, the woman behind me was considering running away as the emotional fit she was experiencing was too much for her. An emotional experience. 90% (07/24/2017)