Reviewing - The Planet of the Apes
An under-rated franchise, Planet of the Apes kicked things off with a memorable 1968 film about an astronaut who crash lands on a totally backwards world. That film was followed by a nightmare of a sequel, and a bunch of other films I don’t care to watch. But in 2011, the franchise was back with a vengeance – bringing us a complete and consistently competent trilogy that highlights one of the greatest actors of our time. Apes together strong!
Planet of the Apes (***1/2)
In which a civilized ape culture can pull off brain surgery but not paper airplanes
Yeah, it’s dated, but it’s an intriguing, thought-provoking adventure – and its final twist still holds up.
I’d seen this like once as a kid with my father, and I didn’t remember much from the original film as I sat down to revisit it this time. I remembered the ending, obviously, and I remembered the ending of its sequel “Beneath the Planet of the Apes” – which was so stupid even my twelve year old self was flabbergasted. Almost right away, the age on this film was palpable. Maybe it was Charlton Heston’s hyper-machismo or the way he spoke with a lurid cynicism, or the cinematographical style and soundtrack. Whatever it was, I knew there was a barrier over this film that would fundamentally prevent it from being something that some people will be capable of enjoying. I don’t say that to mean that it takes a ‘refined taste’ to appreciate a flick like this; perhaps the opposite. My point is that this movie isn’t going to please everyone – as much as I enjoy it.
Oh yeah. Here’s the other thing about this movie. There are WAY more butts in it than I was anticipating. Heston and two other astronauts crash land on a strange planet and do some wandering through the desert before they finally come across an oasis with a waterfall and little pool. Understandably, they’re elated and dive right in, but not before stripping down to their bare bones. Look – I get it. They’re roasting. They want to cool off, and their clothes will just get in the way. And maybe it’s just my modern Western squeamishness, but no part of me was thankful that I got to witness six cheeks barreling towards the water. And as if that weren’t bad enough, then all the guys got out of the water and stood in a sort of huddle – still naked. In the shot, Heston’s in the middle, and the other guys are on either side of him. All of them notice something on the ground, so they’re all looking down. Then the other two guys crouch down to get a better look at it – essentially putting themselves at eye level with Heston’s unmentionables. Like, give me a break – I came here to see APES! What is going on?!
Moving on. Once Heston – whatever his character’s name is – gets caught by the apes, the movie starts to get really interesting. He’s treated essentially like we treat zoo animals, and his inability to speak really forces him to view things from a new perspective. The apes he crosses aren’t two dimensional villains, but fleshed-out characters that operate with complex conventions we only get a glimpse of. The mask design is pretty impressive too – you’re able to suspend your disbelief for most of the film. I loved the paper airplane bit and the scene where Heston’s on trial. The movie really makes you question some of your own preconceived notions of why things are the way they are. Dr. Zaius is admittedly a bad guy, but a lot of the ideas that the apes put forth aren’t all that crazy.
And of course, there’s the plot twist to consider. Given that this film is decades old, most people who have heard of the movie have heard of its twist. And man, it’s a good one. It’s not just a fun spin that makes the ending memorable – it’s the solution to a mystery that’s been building since the beginning of the film. Not only does it make all the loose ends of the movie make sense, but it absolutely wrecks Heston. The guy who was desperate to retain and defend his humanity ended up cursing his own race. That’s good stuff.
It’s not necessarily an action-packed thrill ride, but it’s the kind of film that university students could discuss for hours. For what it’s worth, I’m glad we have this film around – if for no other reason than because it eventually led to the reboot trilogy decades later.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (***1/2)
In which the rampant spread of COVID-19 is foreshadowed nine years early
‘Rise’ kicks off the incredible saga of one of the most compelling characters I’ve seen in filmmaking – and it’s an intriguing story all on its own too.
It’s not often that I review part of a franchise – I’m typically an all-or-nothing kind of guy. That said, in jumping from the original ‘Apes’ film to ‘Rise’, I’ve skipped four direct sequels, two television shows, and the 2001 remake. I’m not sorry for that and I don’t intend to visit any of those projects. I saw “Beneath the Planet of the Apes” when I was much younger, and that’s seriously turned me off of any of the older stuff apart from the original. To be honest, I’m not sure how I ended up watching ‘Rise’ – but boy, am I glad I did.
The plot of ‘Rise’ isn’t all that exemplary when you get right down to it. Essentially, a scientist with a miracle cure ends up dooming all of civilization – kind of like in ‘I Am Legend’. Anyone with a basic understanding of the original film knew that ‘Rise’ had to end with something very bad happening to humanity. But it’s not the downfall of man that makes this film worthwhile. It’s the relationship between James Franco and Andy Serkis’ characters, respectively Dr. William Rodman and Caesar the ape. Rodman has found a cure for Alzheimer’s disease – it’s a drug that makes your brain have more connections, basically. They test it out on a chimp, and the chimp gets super smart. Caesar is the baby of the chimp they tested, and as a result, he’s got the smart-juice in him. Through a series of mishaps, Rodman ends up raising Caesar like a pet / test subject. Their relationship is really heartwarming. Caesar is getting smarter and smarter – and in that sense, he sees Rodman as more of a father figure than a master. But time and time again, Caesar ends up just a bit too close to ‘the real world’ and he discovers the cruelty of man. In an applause-worthy reversal of the original film’s plot, Caesar finds himself trapped in a cage, determined to prove to his captors that he’s no one to be trifled with.
On that note, there are a number of nods to the original film that I only caught this time around because I’d literally just watched it. Caesar’s mom is named Bright Eyes after the pet name of the original film’s lead, given to him by his captors. Caesar gets blasted in prison with a high-pressure hose just like Charlton Heston did. Charlton Heston also appears on a television screen from an old movie of his. Caesar builds a little model of the Statue of Liberty, which we know plays a super-important role in the original. Most interestingly, there’s a visible newspaper article about a space mission that has gone awry, leading to the disappearance of the space vessel. We never get a follow-up on this anywhere else in the trilogy, but it’s not stretch to understand this as the set-up for the original film itself. Loved all of that.
Most of all, though, I loved watching Caesar’s journey. He comes from a world of pain he has no idea about, and spends the first little chunk of his life very happy with Rodman. But the rude wake-up call hits, and he realizes he’ll need to fend for himself. His ingenuity and his commitment to a moral code even in the face of major jerks make him a really admirable guy. By the end of the film, he’s not just a revolutionary but a chief. The film really sets the stage for an exciting sequel, all without sacrificing on its own story.
One last thing – the end credit sequence about the virus spreading across the planet struck a bit close to home, having watched this during the pandemic. On the bright side, the virus currently impacting the globe isn’t nearly as deadly as the one Rodman caused.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (****)
In which a chimpanzee rides a horse into battle yelling while firing two machine guns but it’s a very serious film
With political intrigue, apocalyptic desperation, and a chimpanzee riding a horse while wildly firing machine guns in both hands, this is a truly awesome film.
My ONLY gripe with this movie has to do with the title – and I’m not the first to point this out. If the first film in this trilogy is called ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’, how is ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ any different? Rise means to go up. Dawn is when the sun goes up. Both terms are synonymous with beginning. You could have called Rise ‘Dawn’ if you wanted to. But why make the MIDDLE film in a trilogy ‘Dawn’? If anything, THIS one should’ve been called ‘War for the Planet of the Apes’, because there’s two clearly defined ‘kingdoms’ who battle against each other. It should’ve been Rise, then War…then something else. I don’t know. They just could have done better here.
Ladies and gentlemen, this film and this trilogy cannot be discussed without bringing up a gross miscarriage of justice. Andy Serkis, one of the most brilliant actors of our time, has never even been nominated for an Academy Award. This is the same guy who gave an iconic performance spanning four films as Gollum in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. He’s the one who put the King in Kong back in Peter Jackson’s 2005 epic. He’s played a deliciously wicked demon in an audio drama of C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, and has had significant roles in both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars. And to top it all off, he played the LEAD role in the trilogy we’re reviewing right now. In virtually all of these, he’s playing a totally inhuman character, but breathing so much life and depth and humanity into his performance. So many of his roles have been incredibly challenging, in that they’re highly physical roles that don’t compromise on expression and subtlety. Forget Leonardo DiCaprio working for years to get an award. Serkis is the one who’s been slighted.
Caesar is a powerful show-stopping character in this film. Though he’s not much for talking, he communicates so much in the way he carries himself and in the things he doesn’t say. I love how much they committed to the sign language in this film. Silence is used fairly frequently here, and their comfortability with it was really fresh and exciting. It makes it all the more significant when Caesar opens his mouth to talk. It was really nerve-wracking watching him try to keep his family from going to war even when hotter heads seemed dead-set on it. To that end, Koba’s betrayal stung so much precisely because Caesar had been doing everything right. He’s a good king, and we were rooting for him every step of the way.
The big battle between the apes and the humans was probably the stand-out action piece of the movie and possibly the entire trilogy. Not only was it an epic sequence in and of itself (there’s a dazzling shot in particular from the perspective of a tank gunner that circles the battlefield in 360 degrees), but the dramatic weight of the scene adds so much to it. Caesar’s son is horrified by what his people have lowered themselves to, and you didn’t really want either side to win because of how much misunderstanding is going on. The humans don’t understand just how hard Caesar fought to avoid this and how Koba isn’t really the one in charge – and the apes don’t understand how the humans actually kept their word. Both sides falsely think the other is traitorous, and that’s what makes it such a heartbreaking moment.
Last thing I wanted to talk about was Caesar’s decision to kill Koba. Throughout the film, it’s made clear that the apes have a sort of set of commandments that can’t be broken. It’s also made clear that Koba doesn’t particularly care about them, given that he’s on board with shooting his own king. But at the climax of the film, Caesar’s beaten Koba in battle and has the chance to spare his life. Koba reminds him of their big rule “Ape not kill ape”, to which Caesar responds “You are not ape” before dropping him to his death. It’s a very interesting response – and another moment in the franchise that university philosophy students could probably debate for some time. First of all, what is it about Koba that has made him ‘not ape’? Is it the breaking of the commandments that prevents you from taking advantage of them? And if so, can any ape kill any other ape who is already a murderer? That sounds like a slippery slope. Secondly, Caesar’s opened the door to a very dangerous idea. If Koba – who is clearly an ape – can be classified as non-ape, what other crimes or acts could rob an ape of their ape rights? Alternatively, can a non-ape become an ape through a heroic act or the completion of a sacred ritual? It’s an advanced concept that Caesar is putting forth here – and more than that, it’s a very important rule that he’s made up on the spot to benefit himself. Do I disagree with Caesar’s decision? I don’t know. But from a P.R. perspective, this was a bold choice.
Kicking it up a notch from the film that preceded it, ‘Dawn’ is a house of cards that comes tumbling down in spectacular fashion. It’s an intriguing look at the fragility of trust and the fallibility inherent in any manmade (or ape-made) system. If you were only ever going to watch one Planet of the Apes film, this is a serious contender.
War for the Planet of the Apes (****1/2)
In which your obvious need to improve your tree-climbing skills is made painfully apparent
Technically, musically, and narratively glorious, ‘War’ defies the curse of the third-film-flop with another incredible performance by Andy Serkis and a heartfelt conclusion to the story of Caesar.
Once again, as great as this film is, it’s poorly named. There’s not much of a war here. If anything, this film is more of an escape movie – or an exodus. There’s actually several parallels between this film and the biblical Exodus story. Caesar manages to get his people to a Promised Land across the desert, but he never gets to enjoy it for himself. Caesar’s people are enslaved, but their captors are eventually defeated by a massive unexpected semi-natural disaster. Anyway, they should’ve just called this ‘Origin of the Planet of the Apes’ or ‘Birth of the Planet of the Apes’ to be consistent and left it at that.
‘War’ starts off by reminding us who Caesar is – a good king. He’s been working ever since ‘Dawn’ to protect his people from the humans – time and time again in this series, he’s proven himself pretty much the only person capable of making the right decision. And as the movie kicks off, he’s still doing just that – sparing a handful of human prisoners in order to send a message that he’s not just a crazy ape.
But just like in ‘Dawn’, Caesar’s inherent goodness leads to disastrous consequences: the murder of his wife and son. It’s a brutally devastating moment, the kind that’s perfect to kick the third film in a franchise into high gear. Think of these other threequels that followed suit by stripping their lead of their dignity in or around the first act:
· Iron Man 3: Stark loses his home and thereby his money & Iron Man suit
· Thor Ragnarok: Thor loses his hammer
· The Dark Knight Rises: Batman gets brutally beaten and imprisoned
· Cars 3: McQueen suffers a catastrophic defeat
· Toy Story 3: Andy’s old and doesn’t want to play with the toys anymore
It’s these kind of moments where the rug gets pulled out from under the characters we’ve come to know and love that present great opportunities for compelling storytelling. It forces the characters to redefine themselves, having lost the thing that they thought defined them before. For Thor, he thought his hammer was the source of his power. For Caesar, the thing that mattered the most to him was his family. When we take that away, we put Caesar in a position he’s never been in before.
Caesar’s need for revenge ends up getting the better of him, as the path he takes inadvertently leads to his entire people getting captured by some bad humans. Along the way, there’s a really neat scene where Caesar accidentally kills another ape. He has a dream where Koba’s ghost (appearing more than once in this film) reminds him of his rule: “Ape not kill ape”. In Caesar’s own eyes, his crimes have robbed him of his ape-hood. Loved that.
It was also really exciting watching Caesar and his gang deal with the concept of slavery. Caesar wants to look out for his people, which leads him to rebel and defy their superiors. But there are key moments where temporary subservience seems to be the wise decision. It’s a tense waiting game, where the apes – and the audience – are on the edge of their seats in apprehension of the moment that will turn the fortunes of Caesar’s people. The nobility of the apes even in the face of extreme cruelty is a characteristic that Caesar has shown us throughout this trilogy. You’re always rooting for them.
I also LOVED the de-evolution of man in this film. The virus that got this trilogy started has taken a turn for the worse, and now people are losing their intelligence and their ability to speak. It’s a signal that things have come full-circle, and it also brings this trilogy one step closer to the original film where apes dominated a world inhabited by primitive mute humans. What’s great about it is that it puts the humans in a final-hours position. In ‘Rise’, the humans had no idea what was coming. In ‘Dawn’, the humans were fighting to get back to what they’d lost. But here, it’s the endgame. It’s not about winning anymore – it’s about losing well. Which, admittedly, the humans do not.
The climactic battle between Alpha-Omega (Caesar’s human captors) and the U.S. Army that opposes them works on a number of levels. For one thing, it’s emblematic of one of mankind’s greatest issues – sometimes in moments when we need to stick together the most, we’re most likely to be at each other’s throats. Humans haven’t been wholly irredeemable in this trilogy, but they’re at their most unlikeable in this film. The Alpha-Omega guys are insane, and at the very least evil. We know nothing about the U.S. Army apart from the fact that they literally brought everybody to come to this fight. All we see is the gunfire and the bloodshed that they cause. So seeing mankind crumble upon itself was neat – but what was even cooler was the way the apes triumphed. When the avalanche fell, the only thing that saved the apes was their ability to climb trees. It’s an almost poetic demonstration of the ‘survival of the fittest’ concept. The apes lived because they deserved to live, but they also lived because they were better able to adapt to the circumstances than the humans were.
Before I get to the end of the film, I have to give a nod to the special effects department and the music of this movie. The entire trilogy has been exemplary in the way that they put lifelike apes into real environments with human actors, and this film shows the trilogy at its best. The apes are so expressive, so nuanced, and so human that it’s no wonder they received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects. Then there’s the score to consider. I can’t say that I remember much about the background music for the first two films, but for whatever reason the score this time leapt right out at me. It was beautiful, heart-wrenching, and poignant throughout the film. Michael Giacchinno is behind many of the great film soundtracks of our time, and he didn’t hold back for this movie. The soundtrack alone is definitely worth a listen.
Caesar’s death at the end of the film is a fitting end to the trilogy for a few reasons. For one thing, we’ve now got to follow this character from his birth all the way to the end of his life, which is cool. Secondly, one of the marks of a good storyteller is the ability to end a story before it’s too late. Killing Caesar makes a definitive end to this trilogy – even if more films are to follow, they’ll essentially be starting up a new story, and that’s a good thing. Thirdly, Caesar’s death is done in a way that turns him into an almost mythical figure, like Moses or Prometheus in the sense that they’re heroic characters who made incredible sacrifices in order to pave a way for their people. When Maurice tells Caesar that his son will know what Caesar’s done, it’s basically a promise that Caesar’s story will get passed on. He’s the founder of this nation, and even though his story is over, no one will ever forget what he’s done. That’s super cool.
This trilogy isn’t talked about enough. It’s thought-provoking, brilliantly written and executed, and only gets better with each new chapter. Someone give Andy Serkis an Academy Award, for crying out loud.
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