War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Matt Reeves (Cloverfield)
	Actors: Andy Serkis (King Kong, The Avengers: Age of Ultron), Woody Harrelson (EdTV, Zombieland), Steve Zahn
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, War
	Conditions of visioning: 07.11.2017, in-flight entertainment 8" screen
Synopsis: The war with the humans has really started although the leader of the Apes Ceasar (Serkis) barely accepts it. A turn of events will push him to confront a troop of soldiers led by a man known as The Colonel (Harrelson).
Review: Following the spirit of the two previous Rise... and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, I found War... to be far beyond a Science Fiction movie (with Apes turning human characters) and I would rather classify it as a war drama, a reflection on how to treat enemies that are different from yourself. Indeed it is very easy to see the Apes as human thanks to flawless special effects and excellent acting and motion capture by artists like Andy Serkis (who started as Gollum in the The Lord of the Rings) and others that have now experience in that field. In fact you see many flawed human beings (most of them soldiers) and Apes more humans than them in their reactions and how they treat each other. This is even more true when you realize mid-movie what is really going on with the soldiers. The whole muddy, cold and snowy landscape adds to that oppressing feeling, on top of the prisoner's camp. As already mentioned the special effects are excellent in realism, and I find images of Apes riding horses (like on the poster above) as strong as they might have been to an audience watching the movie with Charlton Heston back in 1968. At the moment of writing this post it is still not known of more movies will be produced and/or whether they will end up with a remake of the original Planet of the Apes, but for sure more and more clues are given throughout this reboot: in one of the previous movies we hear on the radio about astronauts leaving the Earth, and in this one the Apes talk about moving out of the forest towards a more desertic habitat (like where they are the original movie) and another hint is given with (spoiler, highlight to read) the character of the little girl called Nova, which I found out is adult and met by the astronauts when they come back to Earth.
Rating: 7 /10