War for the Planet of the Apes
War for the Planet of the Apes is a 2017 American science fiction action film[7] directed by Matt Reeves, who co-wrote it with Mark Bomback. The sequel to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), it is the third installment in the Planet of the Apes reboot film series and the ninth film overall.[8] It stars Andy Serkis as Caesar, alongside Woody Harrelson and Steve Zahn. The film takes place two years after the events of Dawn and follows the conflict between apes and humans as it has escalated into full war, while Caesar sets out to avenge those he has lost.
Not to be confused with Battle for the Planet of the Apes.War for the Planet of the Apes
- Mark Bomback
- Matt Reeves
- Characters
by Rick Jaffa
Amanda Silver - Premise from Planet of the Apes
by Pierre Boulle
- Peter Chernin
- Dylan Clark
- Rick Jaffa
- Amanda Silver
- William Hoy
- Stan Salfas
20th Century Fox
- July 10, 2017 (SVA Theatre)[3]
- July 14, 2017 (United States)
140 minutes[4]
United States
English
$490.7 million[5]
Development for War for the Planet of the Apes began in January 2014, after 20th Century Fox viewed Reeves's cut of its predecessor; his return was soon confirmed, along with Bomback's. A conditional 2016 release date was announced in May 2015, which led to a closer and faster pre-production relationship between writer and director. The film shares similarities to Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973), with emphasis on the effect of psychosocial development and interaction of apes and humans. Casting began in August 2015 and finished that October, with principal photography commencing soon thereafter and concluding in March 2016, with filming locations including Lower Mainland and the Kananaskis Range.
War for the Planet of the Apes premiered on July 10, 2017, at the SVA Theatre in New York City, and was theatrically released worldwide by 20th Century Fox on July 14[9] to critical acclaim. Praise was directed at Reeves' direction, Serkis' performance, visual effects, themes, emotional weight, Michael Giacchino's score, and Michael Seresin's cinematography. War for the Planet of the Apes was a commercial success, grossing over $490 million, and received numerous awards and nominations, including nominations for Best Visual Effects and Best Special Visual Effects at the 90th Academy Awards and 71st British Academy Film Awards, respectively.[10][11] A standalone sequel, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, was released in 2024.[12]
Plot[edit]
Two years following the Battle of San Francisco,[a] a U.S. Army battalion known as "Alpha-Omega" (AΩ) aided by apes derogatorily called "donkeys", searches for Caesar's ape colony. A platoon of Alpha Omegas assault an ape outpost, but the apes repel the attack with all but four humans and a donkey gorilla named Red being killed. Caesar releases the captured humans as a peacekeeping gesture, but Red escapes after attacking Winter. Caesar's young son Blue Eyes and Rocket return from a scouting expedition to report they have found an oasis that could serve as a safer home. That night, the Colonel of AΩ leads a team to infiltrate the colony and kills Cornelia and Blue Eyes, mistaking the latter for Caesar. Cornelius, Caesar's younger son, manages to survive the attack by hiding while the Colonel escapes.
Caesar, followed by Rocket, Maurice, and Luca, decide to serve as decoys while the tribe journeys to the oasis. In an abandoned village, Caesar kills a human in self-defense and finds his mute daughter, whom Maurice befriends by giving her a rag doll. They encounter Winter, now working for AΩ after giving away their hideout—he had faked the attack by Red and let him escape—and confront him. He reveals that the Colonel's forces are heading north to meet up with the rest of the military. Caesar accidentally kills Winter in retribution for his wife and son, and to prevent him from alerting the soldiers. As they follow the Colonel, Caesar and his group discover several dead soldiers who have been executed by their own troops; a fatally wounded survivor is revealed to be mute, just like the girl. Caesar's group chases someone who has stolen one of their horses and discovers the thief is another intelligent ape, Bad Ape, who matured in isolation. He guides them to a former weapons depot-turned quarantine facility in the mountains that serves as the base for the militia. A human patrol kills Luca, and an enraged Caesar tells Maurice, Rocket, Bad Ape, and the mute girl to turn back. Caesar attempts to infiltrate the base but discovers his tribe has been captured and is forced to build a wall before he is caught by Red. Caesar deduces that the militia is barricading the facility in defense of the incoming military forces, which intend to attack rather than reinforce the militia.
The Colonel reveals that the Simian Flu virus has mutated, causing infected humans to mentally devolve into primitive animals, depriving them of their intelligence. After killing his infected son, he ordered his own troops to kill any carriers before they could infect others. This led to a conflict with his superiors, who believed the disease could still be cured; as Caesar suspected, the military is coming to forcibly relieve the Colonel of his command. The Colonel has ordered Caesar to be tortured starving him and leaving him exposed to the cold. The mute girl, named Nova by Maurice, sneaks into the facility to feed Caesar. Rocket allows himself to be captured to prevent Nova from being seen so he and Caesar can formulate a plan to escape. The Colonel later confiscates the doll Nova left for Caesar, but the other apes escape via an underground tunnel.
The military arrives and attacks the facility and the apes are caught in the crossfire. During the chaos, Caesar sneaks into the Colonel's quarters to kill him, only to find that he has been infected by the virus after handling Nova's doll. Caesar refuses to kill the Colonel, instead allowing him to kill himself. Caesar then attempts to destroy a fuel tank but is critically wounded by Preacher, one of the soldiers he released earlier. At the sight of the apes being killed, Red has a change of heart and kills Preacher before being executed. Caesar blows the fuel tank, causing an avalanche that buries both armies and flees up the trees with the rest of the apes and Nova.
The apes and Nova resume their journey to the oasis. As they arrive, Maurice discovers Caesar's wound and promises that Cornelius will know who his father was and what he did for the apes. With his colony safe in their new home, Caesar peacefully succumbs to his wounds and passes away.
Influences[edit]
At New York Comic Con 2016, Reeves explained that he and Bomback were influenced by many films before writing. He said, "One of the first things that Mark and I did because we had just finished Dawn was that we decided to watch a million movies. We decided to do what people fantasize what Hollywood screenwriters get to do but no one actually does. We got Fox to give us a theater and we watched movie after movie. We watched every Planet of the Apes movie, war movies, westerns, Empire Strikes Back... We just thought, 'We have to pretend we have all the time in the world,' even though we had limited time. We got really inspired."[44] According to Reeves, the treacherous apes being nicknamed "donkeys" is both a reference to the video game character Donkey Kong and the fact that they are used as "pack mules".[45]
Additionally, during production, Reeves and Bomback sought broader inspirations from films like The Bridge on the River Kwai and The Great Escape. Feeling that there was a need to imbue Biblical themes and elements, they also watched Biblical epics like Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments. The influences and inspirations were made evident in the relationship between Caesar and Woody Harrelson's Colonel, a military leader with pretensions toward godhood. Reeves has compared their relationship to the dynamic between Alec Guinness's British Commander and Sessue Hayakawa's prison camp Colonel in Bridge on the River Kwai. Another comparison is in Caesar's journey to find the Colonel, flanked by a posse of close friends—a situation Reeves explicitly tied to Clint Eastwood's war-weary soldier in The Outlaw Josey Wales.[29] Influences from the film Apocalypse Now, notably Harrelson's character and his Alpha-Omega faction being similar to Colonel Kurtz's renegade army, were also noted by several journalists.[46][47][48] Harrelson has also acknowledged the similarities and inspiration.[49] In the third act of the film, the words "Ape-ocalypse Now" are written on a wall in the Colonel's prison camp.
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
War for the Planet of the Apes grossed $146.9 million in the United States and Canada and $343.8 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $490.7 million, against a production budget of $150–190 million.[5][6]
In North America, the film was projected to gross $50–60 million in its opening weekend;[63][64] however, given its acclaimed status and strong word-of-mouth, rival studios believed the film had the potential to debut as high as $70–80 million.[63][65][66] War was closely monitored by analysts while the summer was witnessing a decline in ticket sales, a situation that they blamed on franchise fatigue for an overabundance of sequels and reboots (such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Transformers: The Last Knight and The Mummy). However, box office analysts noted that well-reviewed films have tended to perform in-line with estimates (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Wonder Woman and Spider-Man: Homecoming).[67][68][69] The film grossed $5 million from Thursday night previews at 3,021 theaters, up 22% from the $4.1 million earned by its predecessor, and $22.1 million on its first day. It went on to debut to $56.3 million, topping the box office, albeit with a 22% drop from Dawn's $72.6 million debut.[70][71] In its second weekend, the film grossed $20.9 million (a drop of 62.9%, more than the 50.1% fall Dawn saw), finishing 4th at the box office.[72] In its third weekend, the film made $10.5 million (dropping another 49.9%), finishing 6th at the box office. It was lower than the third weeks of both Rise ($16.1 million) and Dawn ($16.8 million).[73]
Critical response[edit]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 94% based on 363 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "War for the Planet of the Apes combines breathtaking special effects and a powerful, poignant narrative to conclude this rebooted trilogy on a powerful—and truly blockbuster—note."[74] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 82 out of 100 based on 50 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[2] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[75]
War for the Planet of the Apes received praise for the cast's performances (particularly Serkis'), Reeves' direction, visual effects, musical score, cinematography and its morally complex storyline.[76] Scott Collura of IGN awarded the film a score of 9.5 out of 10, saying: "War for the Planet of the Apes is an excellent closing act to this rebooted trilogy, but also one that does enough world-building that the series can potentially continue from here—and it's a rare case where, after three movies, we're left wanting more."[77] A. O. Scott of The New York Times said of the film, "War for the Planet of the Apes, directed by Matt Reeves, is the grimmest episode so far, and also the strongest, a superb example—rare in this era of sloppily constructed, commercially hedged cinematic universes—of clear thinking wedded to inventive technique in popular filmmaking," and lauded Andy Serkis's performance in the film, stating that "Andy Serkis's performance as Caesar is one of the marvels of modern screen acting."[78]
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film three and a half out of four stars, and said that Serkis performed "with a resonant power and depth of feeling that's nearly Shakespearean. Oscar, get busy: Serkis deserves the gold," and went on to say that "War for the Planet of the Apes—No. 9 in the simian cinema canon—is the best of the Apes films since the 1968 original."[79]
Eric Kohn of IndieWire gave the film a B+ rating, and praised Matt Reeves's directing, saying "It's a given that an expensive 21st-century sci-fi movie with talking animals, exploding tanks, and jarring machine guns would look and sound great, but Reeves applies these effects with such a measured strategy that they're always working in service of a greater narrative agenda." Kohn went on to applaud the visuals and musical score, stating that "The breathlessly paced montage of flying bullets and angry monkeys raining down on terrified men, aided by Michael Giacchino's vibrant score, is a strong indicator of the next-level craftsmanship that distinguishes these movies from so many cacophonous Hollywood spectacles; not only is the action easy to follow, but you care for the motion-captured characters at the center of it, while the humans cower in fear."[80]
Home media[edit]
War for the Planet of the Apes was released on Digital HD on October 10, 2017, and on Blu-ray and DVD on October 24, 2017, by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.[81]
