I want to avoid spoilers, so I won't get too much into plot. But everyone is familiar with Planet of the Apes. Going back to the 70's, it was a moving epic staring Charlton Heston and others, which, at that time, showed a planet taken over by intelligent apes, going to war with humans. It was a simple concept, and this recent movie series expounded on how things got to that point.
Ceasar is the main protagonist, who starts as just the son of a prodigious female ape named bright eyes. In all actuality, I don't remember there being any manipulation of the apes at all from the beginning. It happens later. Ceasar's mother displayed her abilities naturally. A serum is developed using the ape experimentation, to cure mental illnesses and assist mankind. Of course, as is usually the case, this backfires. An epidemic follows, and before long, humans are endangered themselves.
Apes, and animals in general are mistreated by humans in the world today. Like the movie Jungle Book, this raises awareness of that throughout the 3 films, which was a good thing. After achieving liberation from where they were held, the apes begin a revolt, and grow in power and understanding. This is the premise of the entire film series.
One ape, becomes "so called" disproportionate in his resolve for liberation, and wants to launch a full on attack on the invading humans before it is too late. One thing that is surprisingly consistent and true in this series, is the volatility and visceral nature of human beings. Humans have no respect in general, for themselves, or for the wild. You have a few who don't hold that thinking, but the truth is that with power, humans bring whatever destruction they can muster, just because. The conflict that Ceasar faces, is trying not to become like them. That is one of the places where the film leaves me frustrated. Ceasar never becomes like the rouge ape or humans, but ends up being painted as if he has, simply because he got upset and torn over the murder of his own, and his family. That's as far as he ever goes, and that's supposed to be his dark streak. That was absolutely ridiculous.
In this movie series, I got the impression that the director knows nothing at all about apes. The gorilla- the pride and king of the apes, is used from time to time as a goofy side cast member. The humans are constantly spared and like humans always do, show less respect when that happens. There was absolutely no reverence in the film toward the majesty of the apes. I felt like dragging the director into the mountains of Asia and filming him trying to clown the apes there like the humans do in the films. During the large majority of movies, the apes are running and being killed in bulk, rarely mounting a retaliation.
Humans and apes alike, have a visceral survival instinct. Let's not be stupid and pretend otherwise. If you go into a klan infested suburb, or a crime infested ghetto, you will see how quick violent natured people can be, to converge on anything they see as a threat, or just game. And those are human beings. If you go into the mountains I mentioned, or into Africa or South America, where there are communities of apes such as chimps, orangutans and gorillas, you will quickly see that they are a complex society, and have a potentially brutal survival instinct. My problem is the the films had no problem displaying the brutality of excessive gunplay. Yet, there was a hesitance or ignorance to display the protective nature that apes would exhibit if being killed and threatened like that.
The revolt of the rouge ape, is a tiny flash of the apes fighting back aggressively. If you have apes that now have the ability to use guns and have numbers on their side, you would never see them being as passive as they were in the films. Even when they had the humans cornered and surrounded them, each and every time they would either let them go, or retreat in some fashion. That was totally fake. We've seen single, small chimps kill grown people in domestic households. What rock was this director living under. The gorilla was almost unseen in the films, and when the chimps would rally and do their territorial call, the braining that would follow, never happened. And that isn't just because Ceasar called them off all the time. I'm not saying this because I wanted to see a film like Congo, with constant brutal murder of humans. But in the end, this movie series was depicting a war. Apes would never act the way they did in these movies. Even with guns, a unit of humans would be pants-urinating terrified to walk into a mountain gorge of gorillas- IN REAL LIFE. And the reason is because they know the death-dealing pounding that there would be zero hesitation on the apes' behalf to administer. Where was that in these films? When you are missing an aesthetic like that. It robs the believability of the entire film.
This nonsense led to a very unrealistic dynamic, where the people never seemed genuinely afraid or respectful of the apes at all in the series. It was ridiculous, and tore apart what I think could have been a great series. When the rouge ape took over the city, the humans were gathered and caged, looking more flustered than afraid, when he clearly stated his objective was to kill or be killed. Let me put it to you like this. You have a sea of thousands of powerful and intelligent apes, that have gathered weapons. Humans are killing them off. They storm the human base to launch an assault for survival. On the way in, hundreds of them are brutally killed by humans, who are eventually overtaken. The apes spill into the base, and defenseless humans scurry around like ants. With your knowledge of apes, and the events I just described, what the heck do you think would happen next. If you aren't retarded, whatever you just imagined, fails to happen, each and every skirmish throughout the 3 films. I guarantee you will become annoyed to some extent, at the ridiculous tolerance of supposedly riled up and powerful apes.
You know the feeling. You know the atmosphere, when you see a valley or mountain passage, where a lone chimp, hulked to the gills catches sight of you, who is a stranger, and begins swaying his arms and doing a rally call as he approaches you. No other apes are seen at first, and then slowly, you begin to hear their response call, and the running starts. Now imagine if you accidentally shot one in the process. Need I go any further? The only time you got that reality, was when Ceasar was in the holding facility after being taken from his master for attacking someone. While in there, he was treated like an outsider by the apes and brutally attacked by one of the alpha male apes. They never behaved like that towards humans.
I hate to nit pick, but that kind of ignorance makes things unwatchable. It reminded me of the movie Jason X, I believe. In one of those later remakes of the series, the cast basically clowns Jason Vorhees for the entire film. There is absolutely no fear or respect for what was a childhood symbol of fear in the 90's. When I see crap like that, I scratch my head and wonder why the film was made. I imagine it's because people have become so retarded that they don't even realize they are doing that.
Either way, it was a waste of films overall, but did a decent job bridging the gap with the sequels and original films. The animation was well done. Not breathtaking, but good in its own right. The personalities in the cast of apes was good as well, and far outdid the human cast which was very odd. If I had to score this trilogy, I'd give it a 6.5/10
