Aping the human condition

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This article was published 13/07/2017 (2991 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As we hit peak summer movie season, it’s not a bad time to remember that sometimes a franchise can be used not just to recycle old ideas and mint money. Sometimes a sequel — or even two — can be used to further explore important ideas and develop complex characters.

The Apes trilogy, which culminates with uneven but undeniable power in this final instalment, really belongs to Caesar, a father, husband and friend, a political leader and military strategist who just happens to be a chimpanzee. Brought to life by the astonishing Andy Serkis in a hybrid performance that combines compelling, subtle physical and vocal work with motion-capture technology and animation, Caesar has been evolving — so to speak — over the course of three films.

War for the Planet of the Apes (directed and co-scripted by Dawn of the Planet of the Apes helmer Matt Reeves) opens mid-action, two years into the battle between the ragged remnants of humanity and the increasingly ascendant apes. The conflict was started in the last outing by the damaged, vengeful Koba (Toby Kebbell), and Caesar must reluctantly finish it. His chief adversary, known only as the Colonel (Woody Harrelson), is an isolated madman obsessed with building a wall. (Hmmm.)

As a background to the war story, we see that while most of the apes still use a form of sign language (subtitled for viewers), a few more are starting to speak aloud like Caesar. Meanwhile, some humans have somehow lost their voices, including a young orphaned girl (Amiah Miller) who is picked up by Maurice the orangutan (Karin Konoval), that big orange softie.

Clearly, we are moving toward a world recognizable from the original 1960s and ’70s flicks, and fans of the classic franchise can look for origin stories for both Nova and Cornelius.

Alongside its intense and well-executed action scenes, War continues the new trilogy’s commitment to serious themes. Rise of the Planet of the Apes touched on ideas of animal rights, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes looked at the dangers of xeonophobia and bigotry in both ape and human societies. This story examines the roots of warfare and the cost of vengeance.

Reeves references films such as Spartacus, The Great Escape and Apocalypse Now, the latter ruefully acknowledged with a scene of simians trudging past graffito announcing the “Ape-ocalypse.” There’s even a smidgen of The Ten Commandments, suggesting there’s more Charlton Heston to Caesar’s character than you might expect.

Of course, War for the Planet of the Apes is serious, but at the same time slightly bonkers. This is a movie about talking apes, after all, and weighty historical references to slavery and concentration camps, seen in the dark and disturbing middle section, sometimes rub up uneasily against the franchise’s hairier, pulpier pleasures. There’s also a little too much Tropic Thunder going on, with a tendency for slow-motion combat scenes, with wounded heroes, assumed dead, emerging from smoke amid overwrought orchestral swells.

This tonal wobbliness is exemplified by Steve Zahn’s Bad Ape, a rather touching character who is too often used as a cheap-laughs sidekick straight out of an old Western serial.

Harrelson seems to be having a ball. In a further nod to Apocalypse Now, his Colonel has gone full-on Kurtz in his remote mountain outpost, ominously shaving his head with a straight razor and even talking with Brando-like inflections at times.

Ultimately, though, the film comes down to Serkis, also known for his role as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings series. It is because of Serkis’s nuanced and emotionally affecting work that in a showdown between people and apes, our sympathies are with the apes. In all the ways that matter, they are more human than the humans.

alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca