“Ape alone… weak. Apes together… strong.”
I never cared for the original run of Planet of the Apes movies, so it’s astounding how much went right with this new chapter which even connects to stories brought up in the previous films. This film is the best use of performance capture, above Lord of the Rings and Avatar. The animals are both photorealistic and expressive, showing an evolution in their humanity as they movie closer to their elevated genetic intelligence. The next film was rightly praised for giving the blockbuster franchise an epic scope, but it’s built on the drama of the characters here. There’s a trust in the material, rather than a need to goose the energy with flashy edits and loud noises.
The tone in general approaches the tricky animal cruelty of Guardians of the Galaxy 3, but everything turns when Caesar the chimpanzee (Andy Serkis) fights back in a way that’s unexpected and chilling. In a second, the entire franchise turns and you can see that humans are doomed. The subsequent ape rampage is earned and exciting as hell, partly because the effects are so solid it becomes matter-of-fact, you don’t even think about them as effects during the complicated action.
What happened to director Rupert Wyatt? Writers Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa have deservedly gone on to great success in blockbuster franchises like Jurassic World and Avatar, but what about the person who raised the tension like a pot of boiling water and staged a final twenty minutes of action equal to the best of Mission: Impossible?
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