War For the Planet of the Apes

 

SYNOPSIS: There have been two years of fighting between the apes and the surviving US military who were called in at the end of the last movie. When the humans finally locate Caesar, the apes are forced to relocate and Caesar is thrust into battle with a personal stake in the fighting against a seemingly unstable military leader known as The Colonel (Woody Harrelson). But even as things change for the apes, an unforeseen threat has come to the humans as well.

That's all I'm going to say in the synopsis, as this movie has just been released and I would like to avoid spoilers for readers who haven't seen it yet. As you can guess from some of the imagery in the poster and some of the details in the synopsis, this new film has overtones of the Vietnam War. The recent Kong: Skull Island did as well, but War For the Planet of the Apes also draws from broader inspiration, touching on war atrocities of various kinds and being at one moment Apocalypse Now and at the next the story of Moses and the exodus. It's very smartly handled in that it never becomes one single obvious metaphor or allegory. Like its predecessor, it touches on bigger themes, but keeps them to the personal story of the narrative.

One thing I like about these movies is the way they open. Rise opened with apes in the jungle being hunted by man. Then Dawn opened with the apes in the jungle as the hunters (of deer in this case). They had become that which had hunted them in a way. Now War sees the humans and apes on somewhat equal ground as it opens with the army hunting out Caesar's base and meeting an ape ambush. The variations on this theme have been very cleverly handled across the trilogy, and that's a tribute to both the writing and the direction.

Caesar's growth as a character continues here. At the end of the last film, he had to acknowledge that apes like Koba had hatred that couldn't be overcome and they couldn't be prioritized over relations with the humans. But in this movie, Caesar is brought to face his own demons, and is he really so different from Koba after all? He's haunted by the image of Koba, a personal mental threat of what he can become if he succumbs to his own emotion. Meanwhile, the audience comes to hate The Colonel, but when we finally meet him there comes a moment where his instability comes from a seemingly rational place, if extreme. So as bad as it all seems, the actions on both sides are understandable. There is no easy solution to the conflict. War is messy.

We are introduced to new characters in this movie, both ape and human. There's an albino gorilla named Winter, who makes for a striking visual. We meet Bad Ape, played by Steve Zahn, a skittish chimpanzee who provides some of the film's lighter moments. He's not a member of Caesar's group, which makes the implication of his presence that much more important to the series at large, a glimpse of what's going on in other parts of the country and the world. There's also a human girl brought into the fold, who Maurice takes under his orangutan arm. This could easily be played for cliche, but she serves to introduce a plot point and play on the emotions of the group. 

As the last film in what has become a trilogy of prequel films, War For the Planet of the Apes is a satisfying conclusion that still hints at things to come. I am on the fence as to exactly where it ranks among the three. It's similar to the second movie, but doesn't drag as that film does a little for me near the end. However, I should say I saw this movie at a trilogy screening and I was tired by the end and started nodding off here and there in the middle. I don't think that's the fault of this movie. It is certainly a strong third chapter. There is possibility of the series continuing as there is more to come until we catch up with the original film, but whether another film comes or not, this one is the closing of a chapter. If you enjoyed the second movie especially, I think you will like this one.

At this point, I'm going to get into a little bit of spoiler territory, so if you wish not to know specific details, read not further!

One element of the original Planet of the Apes that I had completely forgotten about was that the humans were mute, and far more animalistic. And so this movie begins that as part of its story. The Simian Flu virus that killed so many humans has somehow mutated, and the infected humans lose their ability to speak. The girl we meet is one of these, and she is named Nova. This is a nod to the Nova character in the original, but I'm fairly certain we can't take it to be the same character. Then again, Caesar's new son is named Cornelius, so it's possible. I'm amused that the name Nova comes from the Chevy Nova. The Colonel's whole purpose then is to stop the spread of this virus that is making his men animals. He fears for the end of human civilization. So as extreme and heartless as his actions may appear, he is not just a Colonel Kurtz figure; he's obsessed with the survival of his race. This makes him much more interesting that he at first appears, and gives the film added complexity. His compound has a cult-like atmosphere, but the germ of his motivation is understandable, even if it's too much.

Another new wrinkle introduced in the film is that there are ape defectors who now work for the humans. The humans brand them and call them "donkeys" (nods to Donkey Kong?). This makes for fascinating new dynamics of espionage and loyalty. It's no longer apes vs humans. The distinctions are not so clearly defined. 

The movie ends with Caesar as a Moses figure, leading his people out of bondage and into a new home across the desert. The future is still uncertain, but there is hope for the apes that things will be better. It's an interesting way to close out Caesar's story. He began the first movie raised by humans, who ultimately become an enemy. There's even a moment where he kills another ape (something no ape had done until Koba), that reminded me of when Moses kills the Egyptian. 

War For the Planet of the Apes is a smart sequel that knows its source material and what came before it. Matt Reeves has really found his niche with these films (he directed the previous one). While a lot of the movie is dark, taking place at night, I would be remiss if I didn't mention some of the beautiful cinematography. There's another nod to the original with shots of apes on horseback riding along the beach. These are gorgeously filmed, with the sky reflecting in pools of water, and it looks very good in 3D. You don't have to see the movie in 3D, but it does the 3D pretty well. The new mountain environments give this movie a distinct feel from the other two. Overall, if you liked the other movies, you should take the time to see this one in a theater. It deserves the returns for being a satisfying conclusion to a trilogy that no one could have predicted would end up as good as it did.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

 

SYNOPSIS: The worldwide viral pandemic seen spreading at the end of the last movie has decimated the human population, leading to quarantine zones and outbreaks of violence. Ten years later, power plants have shut down and humanity is struggling, while Caesar and his apes have built a civilization in the California woods. But when humans stumble into their domain in hopes of restarting a hydroelectric power plant, tensions arise between the groups. Koba, ever distrustful of humans, initiates a coup and a battle agains the humans. Though Koba's immediate threat is ultimately neutralized, it's not before the humans call in for reinforcement. Even as a new day dawns, the threat of war is coming.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a very good sequel. The story could have just been left there to linger and eventually pick up in the classic continuity. Instead, we jump ahead roughly ten years (likely a little more, but it's been "ten winters" since the apes have seen any humans). The effects work, which was a little bit dodgier in the first film, has improved in only three years' time. The movie essentially opens and closes on close-up of Caesar's face and it's much more believable than even in the first movie. While I'd still like something tangible onscreen again, I didn't feel as strongly the uncanny valley problem.

This is good because this movie is really about the apes and far less about the humans. That is both its strength and its weakness. The first movie rose on the strength of relating to Caesar on an emotional level, but was still grounded in human characters and situations. In this movie, the human characters are somewhat ill-defined; they are simply the outside threat. They are an Other, and while there are good ones and bad ones, they are more memorable as plot functions than as people. I do not remember any of their names. This is a movie from the ape perspective. While that is good thematically, it makes the film a little more inaccessible for a viewer, particularly as we have to fill in the missing history. The human needs are broad (more power for a city), and not nearly as personal. So while this movie does what it does very well, I can understand why some would prefer the prior movie.

It's interesting to see the development of ape civilization now. They have their own little Ewok village and have taken to using tools. It's a bit like the Dawn of Man sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey in that the apes have begun their shift toward being more humanoid. There are classrooms teaching apes to read, and teaching moral concepts about ape society. Caesar is now a family man with a grown son and a newborn. In another nod to the original film, the apes have now begun riding horses (never mind asking where the horses came from or what effect the Simian Flu has on them, if any). They haven't quite gotten to the level of clothing yet (Caesar's loss of clothing in the first film was a paradigm shift from his life in the human world to embracing his ape-ness), but some are adorned with handmade accessories of wood.

What we essentially have then is the clash of civilizations, which gets to the heart of the film's themes. Rise was a sci-fi meditation on animal rights and treatment of those weaker than us. Dawn is essentially a dystopian Western in which the apes play the role of the American Indians. It's a lot like a Dances With Wolves sort of story, in which the outside oppressors come for help and eventually earn trust but there is still war brewing. But it is handled in a way that never feels derivative or redundant. It's not like Avatar just rehashing whole plot points. Rather, it has application to other situations, but its actual story beats are grounded in the universe of the film. Like Pocahontas, it's a movie about prejudice on both sides. And when we think the antagonist is the humans, the ultimate villain comes from within the ape camp. Koba has been so harmed by the humans that he has nothing but hatred, and he is blinded by that (both literally and figuratively, as one eye was damaged in human testing). Caesar must come to the realization that just as he can eventually trust some humans again, he must learn to distrust some apes that are threats. A message of the film is that one cannot base allegiances solely on one's race or culture.  Koba undermined Caesar, and ultimately attempted to assassinate him and blame it on the humans. When Caesar tells him finally "you are no ape", we understand the difficulty for Caesar to come to that conclusion. It's easy to hate broadly; but it's better to trust cautiously.

Once again the cast does a good job. As the apes become more vocal the ape cast gets more opportunity to perform. The new additions serve the film well and it's always good to see people like Keri Russell (who I have loved since she was on the Mickey Mouse Club back in the '90s). The animation of the apes has improved, and there are great moments of simian behavior that still come through. There's a wonderful sequence where Koba feigns ignorance to scout among the humans about their weapons. He goes full circus monkey mode, and it totally disarms the humans before he shifts and actually disarms them. The animation work here is splendid; you can tell they really studied actual chimp behavior. The marriage of human motion capture and animation makes for some wonderful character moments.

What of the title? Part of me thinks it's sort of a nothing title, more reminscent of Dawn of the Dead than an ape film. But it works on several levels. First is the literal dawn at the end of the movie, for those wondering where the title came in. But I think it is also meant to call back to that "Dawn of Man" idea. The apes are no longer mere animals, even if hyperintelligent. They have dawned into a people, a civilization.

The nature of the movie, and its length, make me appreciate it but I don't quite enjoy it in the same way I did the first one. It's certainly an improvement on a technical level. But I do feel there's a kind of distance there because I'm meant to identify more with the apes than with the humans. There's something a little bit flat about the movie because once the conflicts are laid out, nothing really changes.  They just play out along those lines until the main storylines are wrapped up. So in that regard, it's maybe lacking a little, and knowing that it's leading into another film it may be suffering from "middle chapter syndrome". And yet what it does, and where it's going thematically, works well on its own terms. So while I don't think I'd be quick to revisit this one as often, I consider it a good movie and am interested in where the next film will go.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

With the release of the newest Planet of the Apes movie, I thought I would take the time to review each film in the series. Of course, if you've scrolled through any previous posts on this blog, I've said that before and never kept up with it. So we'll see. I have trouble finishing things. We'll begin with the prequel trilogy, so today's post is on Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

SYNOPSIS: James Franco plays a scientist hard at work on engineering a treatment for Alzheimer's in hopes of curing his ailing father. The project proceeds to trials on chimpanzees, but is shut down when one of the promising subjects, uh, goes ape. When it is discovered she had recently given birth and was only protecting her child, Franco adopts the ape and takes him home secretly. This young chimp shows the same mental improvement that its mother did, suggesting the drug works. Franco continues the work at home, names the ape Cesar (played in motion-capture by Andy Serkis), and tests the drug on his father. It works initially, but eventually the man's body fights it off as the compound is in fact a neurogenic virus designed to rebuild brain pathways. Franco discovers that his father's antibodies are fighting off the infection, but he believes a stronger version of the treatment will work. Unfortunately, a horrible incident in the neighborhood leads to Cesar being sent to a zoo where he is mistreated while Franco begins new clinical trials and tries to get his ape son back. But Cesar is emotionally wounded, and decides to take matters into his own hands. Meanwhile, the new viral strain turns out to be very effective on apes, but deadly to humans. Cesar leads an ape uprising releasing all of his compatriots from the zoo, after making them super-intelligent as well, and they flee into the California woods. But as the film ends, the virus has accidentally begun to spread globally. Oh, and we learn in passing of the launch of the first manned mission to Mars, which seems to be lost in space...

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a movie that shouldn't work in a franchise that was dead, and yet it mostly does. It came at an opportune time, a conflux of cultural elements. The fight against Alzheimer's had been growing steadily. There were recent news stories about ape attacks, particularly of someone who had a pet chimpanzee that bit her face off. And Andy Serkis, after making a splash in Lord of the Rings had become the go-to name in motion-capture work, just recently portraying the titular gorilla in Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong. So it was no surprise that he was cast to play yet another ape, in a role designed to bridge the gap between animal and man. All of these elements lead up to an interesting way to get an audience invested in a film series that had long since been dead, particularly after Tim Burton's failed reboot. A prequel seemed a bit audacious, at a time when films like Terminator Salvation weren't doing well going that route.

I confess, I didn't see the film upon its initial release because I wanted to watch the original 1968 film first, and never got around to it back then. I soon saw the Tim Burton remake (which I have since forgotten almost everything about), but as that movie is not in this continuity, it was irrelevant. I finally bit the bullet and watched the classic film when it was screened theatrically last year. I was now ready to go back to the prequels, and so I watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes just a few hours ago. On the whole, I enjoyed the movie. While it's totally possible to view the film on its own as an introduction to this series, I would not suggest it. I think it's better to take the original film on its own terms first, especially if you are young and haven't had any of its plot points spoiled for you. Sadly, the film is so old, that the ending reveal is referenced incessantly by other works, so it's harder to go into it cold. If you already know the major reveals, you can start with Rise.

It is impossible to review this movie without a discussion of the effects work. On the whole, it holds up, even today, though not as well as it could. The apes are all entirely computer-generated. This certainly makes sense from a production standpoint, for safety and ethics reasons, and for the story points of making Cesar the link to the more humanoid sapients of the later films. The visuals are better than something like Jumanji, but there is still that uncanny valley territory where you know you are looking at something artificial. Part of this comes in the mannerisms of the apes, who appear to stand upright a little too much. With Cesar I suspect it was intentional; he walks nearly upright and holds himself like a human. But other apes are just apes, and sometimes it seems to me they aren't quite animal enough. I'm no expert, and haven't seen real chimpanzee footage in a while, but something about it seemed a little off to me, and I think that comes from it being humans performing the actions. I also note that these cartoon apes lack visible genitals (and while I know that some apes have tiny genitals, it feels like real animals have been neutered for film decency) and that takes just a tiny bit of reality away from the proceedings.

If you liked hating Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter series, you'll enjoy watching Tom Felton playing basically the same character; an abusive keeper at the ape enclosure. The cast is very good, including David Oyelowo before he became a name, and Frieda Pinto fresh off Slumdog Millionaire. John Lithgow is effecting in his limited screen time as Franco's father. But of course what everyone talks about is Andy Serkis. There are moments you can tell it's Serkis; here and there a facial feature crept in, and ultimately he gets some vocalization in. But there's enough ape in there that Cesar becomes a distinct character design, a half-way point between Gollum and Kong. How much of what appears onscreen is Serkis and how much is the animators I don't know, but I wouldn't want to slight either of them. There's been a lot of talk in recent years of nominating Serkis for acting awards, with the argument made he's giving the full performance, no different from an actor in makeup. But there is a difference, and some of the WETA animators have spoken up on feeling slighted (especially regarding Lord of the Rings, when this technology was less advanced). I prefer to see it as more analogous to sophisticated puppetry.

And speaking of puppetry, that is something I couldn't help feeling was missing. While I fully appreciate the visual effects we got and the performances that accompanied them, there's still something about having a tangible object on set that feels different. I would have liked a little bit of classic puppet work mixed in, just to lend something tactile to the apes. The Stan Winston or Jim Henson creature shops could have worked up something. A film like Jurassic Park still holds up because it used both techniques (and some of its fully CG work has aged badly). Actually The Lost World has even better blended practical and digital effects. Certainly if you want to feel the expression on Cesar's face, go with the mo-cap. But a shot here or there of Franco touching a tangible chimpanzee hand instead of a digital one would have sold the illusion better, I think. The nature of visual effects is they tend to look dated fairly quickly as time passes and techniques improve.

I liked the little nods to the original film, particularly in the way they casually tease the Mars mission in background elements like TV broadcasts and newspapers. However, it went just a little too far for me in quoting the now infamous line, "Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!" It makes total sense in the moment, and it leads to a huge turning point in the film, but something about directly quoting like that made me bristle. It took me out of the film for a minute.

What's most unique about this movie is its pacing. It's got elements of the more deliberate pace of the original, but moves at just the right speed for the plot. So much of the film is done without dialogue; which makes sense when one of your lead characters can only communicate in sign. It was refreshing for a big studio franchise movie to tell its story visually. This is not the kind of movie you can just put on and not pay attention to. It demands to be watched. There are a number of wordless moments that communicate a great deal. And that's where it is most effective, communicating through action and situation the drama, using words when necessary. It's nice that people still know how to make movies like that.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes was an unexpectedly smart jumpstart to an ailing franchise. If I have complaints beyond aging effects work, they are concerned more with themes as they relate to the original film. I'll delve into those more when (if?) I cover that movie. Rise is concerned with themes of animal rights, and it's generally effective, while still working as a prequel that's not too prequel-y. I'm curious why the film was set in the San Francisco area, rather than the East Coast. But it's a script that makes sense, and a film that's directed well by Rupert Wyatt. Part of me wishes it had a different title though. While it signals the franchise, the title rather spoils things for the future, and part of me wishes it had just been called Rise of the Apes instead. But this is a minor complaint. I'm sure Fox wanted to let people know what the film was so that it would make money. I applaud them for succeeding in also making a pretty good movie.