WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES

Anyone coming to this film expecting to see a full out war between apes and humans might well come away disappointed given that the climactic battle is between two human armies, with the apes as mere bystanders.

We do get some ape versus human conflict to kick things off, culminating in Cornelia and Blue Eyes both being killed.  With the heat on, Caesar sends his tribe off to establish a new home, whilst with Maurice, Rocket and Luca he embarks on a mission to learn more about the paramilitaries who killed his wife and son, and maybe to exact revenge.

Some adventures ensue, and while it’s nice to spend time with Caesar in this way the film’s pace in this middle section is too leisurely - a running time of 140 minutes is quite absurd for a film which has a pretty simple plot and a small cast of characters.

The man Caesar is after is known simply as the Colonel (played by a somewhat miscast Woody Harrelson) who has an uncompromising approach to soldiering.  He has a policy of killing anyone who has succumbed to a variant of the killer virus which renders the infected both mute and primitive (I'm no epidemiologist but I found this rather implausible, not to say daft).

At one point we see some graffiti that says ‘Ape-ocalypse Now’ which is a nice in-joke given that the Colonel is clearly intended to remind us of both the Marlon Brando and the Robert Duvall characters from that film.

Anyhow the Colonel is now regarded by the US Army (or what's left of it) as a renegade so he needs to build a barricade around his base.  Fortunately he has captured Caesar's apes, so he can use them as slave labour.  

When the Colonel then captures Caesar it is most surprising that he does not have him killed, but even more surprisingly it is not Caesar who springs the apes but Maurice and Rocket.

Maurice has always been my favourite character in these films so I was happy to see him get into the action, including acquiring a new friend, a young girl named Nova who has been rendered speechless by the mutated virus.  Their relationship is very touching and a highlight of the film.

It's a nice touch that it is Nova who inadvertently brings about the Colonel's death, even if that feels a bit anticlimactic given the way the Colonel's character was built up earlier.

There is a bittersweet ending to the film which is intended to bring Caesar's story in this trilogy  to a satisfactory conclusion but it left me a bit underwhelmed.

Which is also my feeling about this entire franchise.  All three films are enjoyable enough ways of passing the time, but when I look back on them I struggle to think of any memorable scenes or anything that makes me want to revisit them.

RATING: ✓ If You've Nothing Better To Do