War for the Planet of the Apes - Movie Review

The Planet of the Apes movies were always a big draw for me. I remember when still a kid, feeling that it had been really cool to manage to record a few of those movies in those old VHS tapes, and I kept watching them. Not sure if the message even fully came across yet at that time, although one way or the other, they were enjoyable and fascinating.

Then I forgot about them for a long time, until a friend of mine somehow discovered them, possibly for the first time. We were hiking in the woods, and he was just raving about the original movie, going on about the philosophical implications. Since I had really only seen them as a kid, it seemed that the full weight of the movie and the message had been lost on me. To that point (and we were young men in our twenties at that point in time), I had still mostly thought of those movies as something more or less for kids, and had remembered my own fascination with them when a kid. But his talk got me interested in seeing the movies again, and this time, it was like seeing an entirely different movie. Sure, some of the scenes were familiar, yet the meaning was entirely different, kind of like reading the same book many - perhaps even decades - later. The words in the book might be the same, but you have grown up and understand things entirely differently now, and so your understanding is much broader. Thus, it becomes almost like reading the book for the first time. 

It was the same with the Planet of the Apes movies. Suddenly, I was seeing these films with new eyes, and a new appreciation. Instead of some fun action movie with a wild, frankly far-fetched plot, it seemed that there were messages at every turn of the movie. It was all about human arrogance and the presumption of superiority and entitlement. The movie was trying to tell us that perhaps our own perception of ourselves as God's chosen, as the unchallenged rulers over the planet, and thus entitled to do whatever the hell we wanted to it and with it, including how we treat other living creatures, was itself not only a sin, but perhaps the sin. We were guilty, collectively, of an arrogance that could bring down our entire society, the entire so-called civilized world. 

Of course, like many science fiction stories and movies, both good and bad, this was all easily dismissed by some. The idea of a planet ruled by talking apes, and where humans are seen and oppressed as vile creatures worse then vermin, might seem silly to some. When Tyler finds himself in such a world, it obviously challenges everything that he thought he knew and understood about the world, or at least his world. When the dawning comes to him that this is not some far off planet in a galaxy very distant from Earth, but that this has come to pass over time right here on Earth, he comes to realize that his own species - the human species - has finally gone ahead and done it. They blew up the world, destroyed themselves and their entire civilization in the process. He understands it, and one gets a sense that, on some level, he probably had a hint that this is what had happened all along, only he does not accept it. At least, not until he is given irrefutable proof in that famous final scene, when he sees the remnants of the Statue of Liberty in ruins, washed up and irrelevant on a beachfront. 

And so it was with this new found appreciation for, and understanding of, the original movies, that I went to see the Planet of the Apes movie from 2001 or so - the one with Mark Wahlberg in it. Like most people, I found that that particular version of Planet of the Apes lacked something, and just left something to be desired. To tell the truth, I have not even seen the movie in years, and remember very little of it, which is probably an indication of just how little impression it had on me. The one scene that I do remember is the final one, when Wahlberg's character lands in front of a modern day Lincoln Memorial, only to find it replaced by an ape version of Abraham Lincoln. The implication, presumably, is that apes have done everything exactly the same as human beings, right down to the smallest detail. Frankly, it lacked the originality and ability to stun that the earlier versions did. Not only is an exact mirror replica of our world, only one this time created by apes, with almost the exact same history and everything, not very believable (even by these sci-fi standards), but the message seems to be that human beings are essentially exonerated from any responsibility for the mistakes made, because these mistakes seem inevitable, that these mistakes are unavoidable, and that apes, and presumably any other creatures who rise to an advanced civilization will inevitable make exactly the same mistakes that we have done. And let us not forget here that the there were other human civilizations different from our own, and that these were not necessarily as destructive and arrogant as our own. Native civilizations in the Americas, in Australia, in parts of Asia and in Africa did not match our own arrogance and addiction to setting up systems of glaring inequalities and bubbling resentments, which have always marred our own modern, supposedly advanced civilization - and this is true regardless of what country you are talking about, unfortunately. So, that particular message did not resonate with Planet of the Apes fans as much, and I think it is easy enough to understand why, and probably at a glance.

Here's the thing, though: the Planet of the Apes series is too good to simply be swept up and thrown away by one bad movie, like that one. And so, after a decade, they tried again. This time, it worked much better. 

To be sure, it was different. That first movie at least begins in a world that we would instantly recognize and feel at home with, because it is our own. At least, it is a believable movie version of our world, and things seem more or less entirely normal for the first half of the movie or so. What we see is a particularly smart and gifted young ape named Caesar, and how he is raised by a not so traditional family. But he is loved, and he is given some experimental drugs that enhance his intellectual ability. If he already stood out for being highly intelligent for a chimpanzee, then the drugs enhance this striking intelligence still more. Soon, he begins to have intellectual abilities and understanding that we would recognize in most human beings. Of course, this is greatly enhanced by the drugs and the artificial experimentation, but that is kind of the beauty of that movie, that human arrogance bringing itself down is far more subtle this time around than it was in the original, when the great fear was that irresponsible leaders might actually go ahead and initiate some kind of nuclear war, bringing on an apocalypse that ends our civilization as we know it. This time, it is our own doing, but it is the very chemicals and arrogant experimentation, and the sense of presumption and entitlement that go hand in hand along with it, which causes our own downfall.

In any case, Caesar is inevitably imprisoned, taken by animal services. There, he is in with a number of other apes, chimps, and an orangutan. At first, Caesar is the outcast and rejected by the other apes as such. However, he uses his intelligence and begins to assert control. He also learns how to get out of his cell, and how to In time, he manages to go to his old home to take a dose of the drug that helped to make him smarter, and he gives the entire cell block of apes this stuff, and they all become smarter. He then leads the apes out of captivity, and gather still more apes, allowing them to escape from zoos, and they clash with police forces at Golden Gate Bridge, before escaping to the forests north of the city.

At the very same time that we produce something that makes apes smarter, and temporarily allows human beings with dementia to be cured, we produce other experimental chemicals and drugs that produce a virus capable of wiping out the vast majority of the human race. This idea is obviously not unique to the Planet of the Apes, because it has been used time and time again, in books like Stephen King's "The Stand," or in movies such as "12 Monkeys," and television shows, again like "12 Monkeys" and "The Strain" and even "The Walking Dead." Still, for the purposes of a movie that focuses on a post-apocalyptic world where apes have taken over, this idea obviously works well to advance the cause of both increasingly intelligent and capable apes, and a still more advanced human species that has outsmarted itself and led to it's own downfall, through incredible and blind arrogance. This kind of arrogance is also not unique to the Planet of the Apes movies, as it has also been seen time and time again in all sorts of books and movies and television shows. Hell, we do not even have to look beyond the nightly news, and seeing who is the man in charge at the White House, to see real life examples of this kind of haughty entitlement and a serious addiction to privileges, to the point that he seems willing to do whatever it takes to maintain those privileges at all costs. 

In the second installation of the new line of Planet of the Apes movies, we see a rival leader to Caesar. Koba is a violent ape, filled with hatred for the earlier, cruel experimentation on him by human beings. He hates humans, and feels that war is a necessity to bring about the desired complete extinction of human beings. To that end, he breaks the one real working rule that all apes are supposed to abide by" "Apes not kill apes." He assassinates Caesar, and takes over, wasting no time in starting a war against the human settlement based in nearby San Francisco. The war is very costly, and although ultimately the apes triumph and take over, they find out that reinforcements are going to pour in soon, and that they have won a only a battle, not the war. In the end, we find out that Caesar actually survived the assassination attempt, and he finally kills Koba and takes over the apes again. But he knows that things have gone too far, that human beings will not simply forgive and forget. The war was started by apes, and there is no turning back or reconciliation possible. The war will continue, even if the ones responsible are either dead or seemingly gone. 

Finally, all of that takes us to this latest Planet of the Apes movie: "War for the Planet of the Apes."

Now, before I go on, it seems necessary to give any reader who has not seen the film yet, but intends to, a warning that there might be spoilers. I will try not to give away the farm here, but in talking about the movie, it will be difficult, if not outright impossible, not to reveal some things about it that might spoil at least some of the things that the viewer is meant to discover on his or her own. So, here is the warning:

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Here, we see that the world has seen the continued deterioration of the once mighty human civilization. Those who remain are trying to deal with the wreckage. Human beings are far fewer than before, and there are warring factions now. What we see is an army under the command of a very arrogant colonel, who retains the same arrogance that brought the fiction version of the human species in these movies to the verge of complete extinction. Colonel McCullough, played very capably by Woody Harrelson, believes in discipline, to a fault. It's funny, because when I think of Woody Harrelson, I still think of the young bartender that he portrayed in Cheers, which is a far more innocent role. Of course, he has played some far more devious characters numerous times since. However, it is a testament to his acting that he has never seemed more menacing than in this role, where he is downright scary. At some points, Harrelson's Colonel McCullough charactger reminded me of Ralph Fiennes playing Amon Göth in Schindler's List. Remember when Göth would look down, quite literally, on every Jew in the prison camp, and if he felt like it, would suddenly start shooting them up? Well, Colonel McCullough's seeming immunity from any possibly dire consequences for his actions reminded me of that. Hell, he even has that same advantage that Göth had, of having his sleeping quarters above the entire camp, so that when he wakes up, he literally looks down on everyone, including all of the apes, in the camp. It was a good idea, a good approach, and Harrelson's acting really makes it work. Frankly, I have seen Harrelson in enough movies by now not to think of him as good, innocent little Woody Boyd in Cheers any longer. He has shown darker sides in his acting for literally decades now. But in this role might very well have been his most sinister yet, and he really nails it, frankly.

As the movie goes on, we find out just how extreme Colonel McCullough's faith in extreme discipline really is, on every level. Yet, it does not prevent him from breaking off from the main army, and essentially beginning a civil war of sorts, as he has become a rogue colonel. His men remain loyal to him, but the colonel feels that the main guys in charge are bumbling idiots, and do not take seriously a new threat, which is that there is a new strain of the same virus that wiped out human beings in the first place. I do not want to say too much here, but the colonel believes that this new strain of the virus will be even worse than the one that nearly wiped out all human beings, and will make people essentially like the basest creatures, and virtual slaves. 

Caesar is clearly getting older, but he has grown wiser, and his rough way of talking in the two prior movies has been smoothed out. This movie really shows a strong range of emotion for the viewer, and the apes have to stave off surprise attacks by human military forces, then are caught and taken to what seems like a modern day, American labor/extermination camp, where the apes are forced to work tirelessly, yet given no food, and knowing that they will meet certain death at the end of their work. Caesar himself is tortured, and he grows to hate the colonel. Again, I do not want to say too much, if I have not already done so. However, it is a movie that will take you through somewhat of an emotional roller coaster.

This was an awesome movie, and a wonderful addition to the still growing collection of Planet of the Apes movies. I recommend this for any fans of the franchise, and really, recommend this to almost anyone. Yes, it is another post-apocalyptic movie (or post Ape-pocalyptic, as some graffiti in the movie suggests), but this one has more intelligence than most. This is the second time this year that a major movie has made audiences root for, and not against, apes (the King Kong movie being the other one), and I think it is a testament to the movie's writers and producers that we come to want the apes to defeat humans - all humans. If you think you might like such a movie, do yourself a favor and go see this one!