Movie Review—War for the Planet of the Apes

 

by Peter J. O’Connell   

War for the Planet of the Apes. Released: July 2017. Runtime: 140 mins. MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi violence and thematic material.

The conflict between apes and humans that has raged in two recent films, Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), not to mention the original series of films and TV episodes in the 1960s and ‘70s, reaches “ape-ocalypse” levels in War for the Planet of the Apes, directed and co-written by Matt Reeves.

In War the Simian Flu sweeping the world actually has increased the intelligence of apes, but killed off much of the human species, with many of the survivors “devolving” into a mute and mindless state. Caesar (Andy Serkis), a highly intelligent ape, has tried to maintain peace between apes and humans, but without success.

Now he and his followers are hiding out in a forest. There a military force known as Alpha-Omega (“the beginning and the end”), which is under the command of a ruthless Colonel, attacks them. After the battle, Caesar will dispatch most of his followers to begin a journey to a distant region so as to escape from humans entirely.

The battle in the woods, brilliantly staged, with the apes riding horses and using spears and bows-and-arrows as well as firearms, is reminiscent of conflicts between whites and Native Americans in movies based on the novels of James Fenimore Cooper, such as Michael Mann’s The Last of the Mohicans (1992), or those of Neil Swanson, such as Cecil B. DeMille’s Unconquered (1947). Scenes at waterfalls reinforce this allusion.

In fact, War is as packed with allusions to history, literature, and, especially, films, as if it were a cinematic equivalent of an Ezra Pound canto. And, as in Pound, the allusions impart an epic quality to War. One of the major patterns of allusion comes after the forest battle when Caesar sets out with a small band to confront the Colonel for an atrocity committed against Caesar’s family, while most of Caesar’s followers are on their (allusion alert!) exodus to a new land.

The Colonel (Woody Harrelson) is a shaven-headed, brutal but philosophical type, obviously modeled on Marlon Brando’s Colonel Kurtz character in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, though, mercifully, minus the mumbling. The phrase “APE-OCALYPSE NOW” even is seen in graffiti at the Colonel’s camp—and, naturally a helicopter attack takes place, as it did in Coppola’s 1979 classic (and also in that other ape movie from earlier this year, Kong: Skull Island). 

Caesar is captured and brought to the Alpha-Omega headquarters, which is located at a kind of concentration camp where apes perform slave labor building a big wall. The wall is to protect the Colonel’s domain from attack by other human forces, which wish to stop him from carrying out his policy of killing anyone (even in his own family) who is stricken with the Simian Flu.

At the camp Harrelson’s character becomes reminiscent not only of Kurtz but also of several other characters and historical figures as well. Like the equally shaven-pated Mussolini, the Colonel orates showily from a balcony. The slave labor camp may bring to mind the one in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1994), whose commandant presided from a height. Like the Japanese prison camp commandant and the British officer in David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), the Colonel and Caesar have intense conversations while the prisoners labor on a construction project. The primate prisoners in War labor, not on a bridge, but on a wall, which may also bring a certain prominent figure of today to mind.       

Eventually, matters come to a spectacularly violent head as: Caesar and the Colonel battle; Alpha-Omega and the attacking human force contend; and apes attempt a (allusion alert!) great escape. Nature also plays a role.

War for the Planet of the Apes comes close to epic status through its allusive approach, adroitly managed by director Reeves. Woody Harrelson and most of the cast are quite good. But, of course, essential to the film’s success is the extraordinary performance of Andy Serkis as Caesar. The very realistic-seeming walking/talking apes in War are created through a combination of motion capture and computer-generated imagery. In other words, actors perform the movements, expressions, and dialogue of the ape characters, and then ape bodies are created digitally to “contain” the performances.

Writing in The Washington Post, Stephanie Merry makes the case for considering Serkis for an Academy Award. “ . . . Serkis’ stellar performances aren’t just about the fancy bells and whistles in postproduction. The emotions and expressions are all his . . . . Caesar’s arc requires a wide range of emotions, from triumphant to despondent to bloodthirsty, while he retains more humanity than any of the humans around him . . . . Motion capture, like lighting, costumes and makeup, is simply a tool for actors.”