Movie – War of the planet of the apes

Movie – War of the planet of the apes
Score : 7/10
Year : 2017
Director: Matt Reeves 
Country : USA
Language : English
Duration: 2h20

Writers : Mark Bomback & Matt Reeves 

15 years after the events in Dawn..., the humans and apes are at war with one another. 
In parallel, the movie deals with Ceasar's inner struggles with his darker instincts, as well as his newest nemesis' own battles and mad zealotry in what he calls a holly war. 

This movie like the 2 previous installments are all suggested possible prequels to the original novel by Pierre Boule, and hence aren't adaptations but imagined sources for what would happen. 


I loved the overall acting and pace, despite a slow beginning. Just like the previous 2 movies, this one offers more nods to the original Planet of the apes adaptations, expanding and adding to the mythic dimensions of the quests on which the people embarked - those of the humans, and the apes. 

The explanation of possible evolution from the end of Dawn... to the current movie are quite plausible and scientifically sound. 

Michael Giacchino's musical score is usually on cue with action or suspenseful sequences, but bordered on the ridiculous during the few comic relief portions - though those were needed, in view of themes of warfare, torture and  violence. 

The movie isn't overly graphic, but does depict lots of battle scenes and some characters from each camp are shown with a bit of blood - whilst one short moment in the snow was a bit more graphic for my own sensitivity and I had to look away. 

Michael Seresin's cinematography was quite good, overall, but either the cinema's projector had a few glitches, or Seresin had an artistic creative choices I disagreed with when some shots were out of focus and looked a bit cheaply made. On the other hand, most of the movie offers lots of well proportioned balance between narrow close-ups, and very wide landscapes, and the battles are quite epic, well served by visual FX of quality. 

It sucked that we'd missed the few 3D non-dubbed versions in our local cinemas, as a few of these scenes would've been amazing in 3D.

Overall, War of the planet of the apes is a very enjoyable movie, just like the other 2 movies in the series. However, there are recurrent problems about them as they are white-male driven, leaving very few appearances of women as you can read in the cases of Rise & Dawn of the planet of the apes. 

This time around, we have 2 female soldiers, seen briefly a couple times, and the actresses are un-credited and have no lines ; there are almost no female apes, aside for Lake (Ceasar's daughter-in-law) either, even though there are plenty ape-children. 

The only other female character is a human girl accompanying the apes as seen in the official poster, but she has no lines either. So, although I loved Amiah Miller's performance and character, we needed a whole lot more female characters that aren't the child of, the spouse of, or the supportive, nor the token woman soldier surrounded by a battalion of humans or a shit-ton of male-apes... 


 The few women portraying apes are only behind the scenes and usually have no lines whatever. 
Really, it's 2017 and we must strive for gender equality, not only in showing and sharing screen time, but also dialogues. Why are so many directors, writers and casting departments so afraid of women ?! 

The other issue is ethnic diversity and racial overtones. 
It's possible that the current racial issues in the USA have formed the main plot's presence of a colonel who acts like a skinhead, and that the only ape wearing human clothing in the form of a blue vest similar to the one worn by Black Lives matter activist DeRay Mckesson. 
It could be subconscious, or a conscious choice to depict these aspects as social commentary on current state of affairs. The fact there are only token black men on-screen, in the form of soldiers, some not even credited as they have no lines doesn't bode well for a movie with a majority of white-male protagonists, secondary characters and extras alike. 

Some scenes were emotional but passed far too quickly back into action-packed, and thus the emotional content wasn't fully used...  

Of note : there is one repetitive factual error in this movie, which bothered me and was confirmed upon research : an adult gorilla weighs 300-400 lb and the horse he rides would barely be able to walk, yet along galop... This is most glaring factual error, though there are also a few other factual and continuity errors, as well as plot holes. 

Thus far, the newest planet of the apes trilogy (Rise, Dawn & War) are action-packed and entertaining movies, but it's quite hard to accept their lacks in matters of gender and ethnic equal screen-time and dialogues. 

The ending could be seen as closing the loop and keeping this as a trilogy, or open to 1-2 more movies... Indeed, a fourth movie is planned, as announced in October 2016. 


Casting : 
The amazing Andy Serkis reprises his role as Caesar. Other apes are Karin Konoval as Maurice*, Terry Notary as Rocket, Toby Kebbel, Judy Greer, Sara Canning, Michael Adamthwaite, Max Lloyd-Jones, Devyn Dalton, Aleks Paunovic, Ty Olsson, Steve Zahn

Humans : Woody Harrelson, Amiah Miller, Gabriel Chevarria and a host of extras.