War For The Planet Of The Apes

As a big fan of this reboot series, and with the firm belief that the last installment, "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes," was one of the best films of 2014, hopes were high for the next (final)?) installment in the "Apes" legend.

"War for the Planet of the Apes" is a film that offers little in the way of surprises and goes places that you wholly expect. While the other two films brought up a lot of psychological and sociological issues, "War" is a straight-up war movie, and nothing much more than that.

When last we left our band of merry apes, things had not gone well in the encampment they established. A small group of humans had invaded their camp - causing problems and learning lessons - but the apes defended themselves and eventually thought all was well. However, at the start of "War," which takes place five years after the end of the last film, they are invaded by American military troops who want the apes exterminated. Tragedy strikes the family of Caesar (Andy Serkis), so he goes off to find the humans responsible and stop them from their continued efforts to annihilate them. He is teamed up with Rocket (Terry Notary), orangutan Maurice (Karin Konoval) and newcomer Bad Ape (Steve Zahn), who is an older, goofy ape they stumble upon that provides unnecessary and out-of-place comic relief. (He actually trips off screen and yells "I'm okay!") They also run into an orphaned girl (Amiah Miller) that they eventually name Nova (a nice throwback to the original series). However, aside from one key plot point that utilizes a prop she carries with her, the character doesn't add anything to the story. She's like a boring Newt.

The group travels to a slave encampment run by a jerk called Colonel (Woody Harrelson doing his bad-guy thing), and that's where our heroes have to figure out a way to rescue their fellow apes and get rid of the bad humans. Oh, and the virus that wiped out humanity is still at work, threatening the soldiers that keep the apes at bay.

"War" is a pretty straightforward film with simplistic messages and fairly one-note characterizations. Caesar occasionally struggles with feeling that his revenge mission harkens back to Koba (Toby Kebell), who battled against him in "Dawn." In that, he has to find the humanity in his inhumanity. Other than that, this is a sort of "Wizard of Oz" meets "The Two Towers." There's some traveling, an alliance of characters, and a war. It's definitely the weakest of the "Apes" films as far as holding interest or being about anything profound, but what makes it special is the wall-to-wall CGI that brings these characters to life.

Aside from a few humans, the "Apes" movies are almost fully "animated." But it's so photo-realistic it's uncanny. Never once do you not believe these apes are real. Between their movements and their expressive eyes, we easily go along for the ride and never doubt that Caesar is in the same room with the Colonel. That's the wonder of the films, and credit goes to Matt Reeves ("Dawn" "Cloverfield") for making a nutty concept work so beautifully.

As always, the cast does amazing work, as they are all on set doing the motion capture and mimicking the movements of real apes and gorillas. Serkis again gives an Oscar-worthy performance as Caesar, who has, at this point, become an iconic movie character. Konoval as Maurice is also one of the more impressive creatures, both in creation and in characterization.

Production design by James Chinlund is impressive (the apes' village is gorgeous) and the John Ford-esque cinematography by Michael Seresin ("Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban") is stunning. The hundreds of visual effects artists should all be applauded for creating characters so real that audiences willingly go on a journey as the apes Rise, break Dawn, and fight a War for their survival. The jury is still out as to whether there will be more installments, but despite this being a somewhat lackluster installment, I'd gladly go on a journey with these apes time and time again. Rise up they should, and here's hoping they make a future Conquest at the box office.