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Reviews
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
Does not live up to expectations or even its title
This movie began with so much promise, however sadly by the end I felt like asking for a refund.
The visuals and cinematography were incredible, no doubting that. What angered me is the story-line and in particular the false title, "War for the Planet of the Apes". This movie does nothing to deserve the title and feels like the writers could not think of a story-line that had the apes winning while also remaining the heroes (i.e. without killing all humans).
The so-called war involves a brief skirmish in the woods between apes and humans, followed by two hours of build up to a 10 minute battle between humans and humans. Whenever the movie gave us a hint of the battle, with admittedly epic scenes which reminded me of a modern take on the opening of Gladiator, the director cut away to Caesar skulking around, Woody Harrelson doing his best zombie impression, or the apes hiding behind rocks. And this "battle" is ended by a single grenade destroying one human army, and a ridiculous avalanche destroying the other.
Yes I accept that the avalanche may represent Mother Nature destroying the humans, but why in gods name was the story-line not about apes fighting a war against humans?
This is my main issue with the movie, and I won't even go into the farcically drawn out season of Prison Break lumped into the movie for no apparent reason.
We wanted apes fighting humans. We got humans fighting humans, apes in prison, and apes getting a lucky break.