The humans and apes have been at war for two years. The apes manage to capture four soldiers. The apes' leader, Caesar wants to try and reason with the humans by offering them peace. He shows that he means no harm by sparing the soldiers’ lives and letting them go. It doesn’t change anything. Shortly after that soldiers find the apes’ secret base and the officer in command kills Caesar’s wife and son. Caesar wants revenge against the man who killed his family. Caesar has the ape tribe go to a safer place while he goes on a path, along with his trusted colleagues Maurice, Rocket and Luca to the soldiers’ camp so that Caesar can kill the man who murdered his family. Along the way they find a human girl and then an ape who calls himself Bad Ape. When Caesar finally makes it to the camp, he discovers that the apes from his tribe have been taken, are held prisoner and are treated like slaves. Caesar gets captured and is now a prisoner like the others. He must now find a way to set his apes free.
Blaine: This is the last movie of the “Planet of the Apes” trilogy reboot. So much is put into these movies. The plot, the performances and the look of the film. After “Dawn”, Matt Reeves and a few others asked themselves what will happen next for Caesar and the apes? They knew it was going to involve war sense the last one ended with the apes awaiting for war to come. Matt Reeves and Mark Bomback started working on the script for the next film shortly after “Dawn” was released and the first thing that came to Matt’s mind was that Caesar should go on a path to a dark place. Matt and Mark would watch a war movie each day to help them think of ideas of how the plot should go. They watched “Bridge on the River Kwai”, “The Great Escape”, “Apocalypse Now” and “Thin Red Line”.
A lot of the time I was worried for the apes especially towards the end when Caesar is standing up right in front of the white coat soldiers who could shoot him dead easily. You’re also concerned about the apes making it out of that prison without being seen and killed.
Caesar is almost like Jesus in a way in “War for the Planet of the Apes". He demands that his apes have food and water and he is tied up to two logs like he is being crucified. While Matt Reeves and Mark Bomback were experimenting with ideas for the script by watching movies they also watched Biblical epics like “Ben-Hur” and “The Ten Commandments” because they also wanted something like that in their story.
One of the things that helps bring an ape character to life is the performance done by the actor through motion capture. Andy Serkis is one of the greatest character actors known to man and Caesar I would say is his best work because he brings so much into his performance and he pushes himself to do more for each one of these movies. Andy said that Caesar had to speak quicker in “War” because through each movie he evolves more. Andy shows these great dramatic, angry, sad expressions through his performance. It really impresses me seeing all the close ups of the apes’ faces and seeing how detailed and life like they are. So much detail has been put into the fur, the wrinkles of the skin, the teary eyes and the veins within the eyes.
Bad Ape is the newest member of the group. He calls himself Bad Ape because the humans used to say that to him a lot and he doesn’t know if he has any other name. Bad Ape is the first ape Caesar and the others have met who is not apart of their tribe, but is intelligent like them. They never knew there might be other apes out there in the world that could be as intelligent as them. Bad Ape is a coward because he has been through a lot, but Caesar and Maurice push him to be strong in order for him to go on this journey with them and help them save the other apes.
My friend Sheri thought it was funny that Bad Ape dressed in those winter clothes, but he doesn’t have a lot of fur on him and he’s going to need something to keep him warm in the cold weather. There’s a lot of people who want to play an ape in these movies after seeing how fun it looks…..I’m one of them and Steve Zahn was honored to be apart of this movie as an ape. Steve had to learn how he was going to act by watching the other actors who play apes. It was fun for him to work with people like Andy Serkis, Karin Konoval and Terry Notary who have had so much experience playing apes in this trilogy.
The first two “Planet of the Apes” films to this trilogy had Easter eggs that represented the original trilogy. Maurice, the wise Bornean orangutan takes in a nine year old girl after Caesar and the others find her and she becomes a member of the ape’s group. Maurice names her Nova, which was the same name of Charlton Heston’s love interest in the original “Planet of the Apes” movie. Nova has been described in this movie as someone who shows Caesar there is still some good in the human race. She manages to sneak herself into the army base and gives Caesar the food and water he desires in order to survive and keep on going. I thought she was a mute at first because she can’t talk, but the reason why she can’t is because the disease that began to wipe out half of the human race is still spreading, but now it’s doing something different to the humans. It’s making them more animal like and taking away their ability to speak. Nova says more with her facial expressions and Maurice teaches her how to sign. Amiah Miller, the young actress who plays Nova auditioned without even knowing the kind of movie she was auditioning for. Amiah was nervous working on a project like this at first, but everyone around her made sure she felt comfortable. Most of the time Amiah would have to use her imagination by interacting with something that wasn’t there. There were a few shots where she was looking at nothing but air and she would have to pretend there was an ape next to her. Matt Reeves was really impressed and proud that Amiah was able to pull it off.
The technology of visual effects keeps on enhancing each year. For “War”, WETA was able to do visual effects where an ape can fall into the water and when it comes back up on land, the water is dripping off of it's fur. They said they couldn’t have done something like that in the last film. They were able to get the fur wet in the rain, but not from the river. They had three years to prepare themselves for that kind of thing. Another challenge was in store for WETA and that was having snow get on the apes’ fur because Caesar and his colleagues go up to the mountains where it is snowing to find the army base. They would shoot in real environments like Kananaskis and the Lower Mainland in Vancouver. Then they would go to a warehouse to shoot motion capture (recording of movement of objects or people) of some sequences that would be impossible to shoot in these real places.
I was hoping to see more of Caesar’s wife Cornelia, played by Judy Greer in “War” compared to her having a small role in “Dawn", but it’s just as small as the last film. Both she and her son, Blue Eyes, are around for the first ten or fifteen minutes of the film and then when you least suspect it they both get murdered. Caesar’s youngest son is still alive, so he doesn’t go insane, but he is still full of rage and vengeance within him.
Koba was once a trusted ape of Caesar’s tribe until he went mad and turned behind Caesar's back so that he could start a war against the human race because he despised them. Koba was full of vengeance and hate and Caesar fears he is becoming like him by wanting revenge against the man who killed his family. Caesar wants to kill the Colonel even though he realizes that he is behaving like Koba.
Koba haunts Caesar after he let him fall to his death. Killing a member of his own species wasn’t easy for him. The apes' saying was “Ape shall not kill ape”, but Koba broke the code by killing apes who wouldn’t participate in fighting with him. Caesar ask himself why he never could see through Koba.
Some of the apes that were loyal to Koba now fight on the humans’ side against Caesar and one of them is a gorilla. Caesar reminds him that he is an ape and he should fight for his own kind. I’m glad the gorilla made the right choice by blowing up Preacher (One of the soldiers Caesar let go at the beginning after he attacked a tribe of apes). Preacher deserved it. Caesar spared his life and yet he still attempts to kill him. I got mad just from looking at the guy.
The ending is sad because Caesar dies, but it’s better for him to die peacefully than having to be killing by Preacher or being blown up or having that avalanche take him. He also dies a happy ape knowing the tribe he has led and cared for all these years are safe in a new place they can call home.
My rating on “War for the Planet of the Apes” is five out of five stars.
