 Hey guys, this is my review for War of the Planet of the Apes, apologies for it being so late, mainly because now I'm back on set and oddly enough the schedule is from Wednesday to Sunday, so you know how much I like seeing movies on time and it's really pissing me off that I'm going to be missing Dunkirk. War of the Planet of the Apes is the third film in the Planet of the Apes reboot trilogy that started off with James Franco teaching a ape how to do sign language and this is a series that literally has matured more with each installment. The first film is alright, obviously everything that happens with Caesar, his rise and with the apes was really good, but the human characters, even Franco, were really not that great. Franco had something, but everyone was just an ape racist in that movie, terribly one dimension, like remember Tom Felton, he just like whacked apes. The second film was a much bigger, much more in-depth advance in the series, Matt Reeves took over as director and he added this much needed maturity and this collusion and sort of rebellion within the ape community. The whole character of Coba was great, he was an amazing addition to this film series and he was probably one of the best parts of Dunk of the Planet of the Apes. This film takes place after, two years after, I'm going to give you a really good in-depth text at the very beginning of this film and it starts off punching you right in the heart. There's this battle scene at this gateway with the apes being almost blown to death by these military folks and how it is shot, how it is set up is so good, there's one issue with it, everything from an emotional standpoint after this whole sort of section of the film doesn't match this part. It hits you right off the bat and nothing after it hits you as well, literally it's more so like you're pulling out your big guns. I had this issue with Mission Impossible Rogue Nation. The best stunt of the movie was done at the very beginning of the film and that kind of soured it a little bit for me. What we're seeing is that Caesar is sort of on the run from Woody Harrelson's crazy military folk. Now he's at the point where he has to try and either confront Woody Harrelson or his apes will eventually be hunted down and killed. However, how the film plays out after this point I admit I actually liked because it was different from what I expected. I knew certain things were going to happen mainly because of that last trailer, certain things would happen before. The character of Woody Harrelson's Colonel is actually almost the most in-depth human character that the ape series has had. That's the one thing as I mentioned before, the ape films have never really had an in-depth character. Jason Clark was close, but everyone else was more so of a tool, like Gary Oman. Gary Oman's character was so weak and it was so odd to have such an amazing actor be used as a tool for nothing other than advance the plot really. Woody Harrelson is again a device of the plot, but he has his own issues. He has his own sort of mad tyrannical sort of pure world sort of idea. Harrelson's character is interesting, he's kind of a more of a darker, more ape racist, more radical version of Gary Oman's character from the last film, but what's going on in this film is apparently the virus has changed, it started to change again. It's turning, it's giving this, it's mutating into people that it will make them not speak and this is sort of his reason for purification and his ways are interfering with other military who are kind of pissed at the idea of what he's doing. Again there are elements of this film that are different from what I expected and I enjoyed that aspect, however there's a few issues just with the military that just really kind of soured it, mainly the biggest thing is how stupid they all are, they're at the base, they are the worst guards on the planet. The beginning of the film we saw that they were very tactical, they were very precise with their actions and then they don't see shit that's happening right in front of them. The other issue is the rebel apes, now watching the trailers and seeing these rebel apes I was actually kind of intrigued, I was like what would cause apes to rebel against Caesar and their excuse in this film is these are people who are still loyal to Koba and that they just want to kill Caesar. The problem was Koba's main drag was that kill humans, that is the main thing, Caesar's superior kill humans, so the fact that they're working with humans kind of completely countermans exactly what Koba was all about, so I don't know I didn't really side with that. There's also this gorilla who is a main betrayer and his arc is dumb. We were kind of setting up for a confrontation and what really ends is something so melodramatic and so kind of at a left field that it doesn't really sit well with how his characters paste. Now again I'm pulling out a lot of negatives of this film and I shouldn't be because this film was really good, Andy Serkis does an amazing job once again as Caesar. The connections between him and his fellow apes Maurice, this one they call bad ape are fantastic. The connection between these apes is still the best part of the movie, that's something that's never changed as the characters of the apes are still fantastic. They are still the most entertaining part of the film. I didn't thought they couldn't get any better than Don of the Apes and they did. The visuals of this film are fantastic. Again I like how the film progresses, I like that it goes in a direction that I didn't expect. There are just issues here and there that are just kind of like really? That's what you're going with? Especially the conclusion. I thought the conclusion just before the last part was like that's how that happens you're going to go with that, alright, whatever. In the end I did enjoy War of the Planet of the Apes but as I said there was such an emotional sledgehammer to your heart and to your senses at the beginning of the film that everything just slowly fades and everything afterwards just doesn't really hit you as hard. There are moments that try to visually capture you but they don't hit you as hard as the beginning did. The beginning is just so well done. And however I will say it is a great end to this trilogy. Is it a trilogy that's as good as freaking Lords of the Rings? There are a lot of people who are hyping this movie saying this is the best trilogy since Lords of the Rings and I'm not saying this because I'm a Batman fan majority but I would rather watch Nolan's Batman films over this series any day. There's always a little flaw in each film. The first one is bad, it kind of just has this cool idea. The second one is the best one, I'll say that. The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is definitely the best one of this series. And War of the Planet of the Apes is good. It's entertaining, it has good emotional moments but it just falls short in a few issues that kind of just nipped me a little bit. War of the Planet of the Apes is a great way to end this series. It is not this beacon of great filmmaking as some people are putting it out to be but it is still an entertaining film. It has great character elements. It has a satisfying conclusion to Caesar's story. It just has a few issues here and there. So in the end, my rating for War of the Planet of the Apes is a 5 out of 7. It's a good way to end this series. I'm happy that it's gone this way. They kind of have the idea of leaving it open which I hope they don't do. I hope they just leave it as it is. Anyways guys, that's all for me. I hope you enjoyed this review. I'll see you all next time.