Genre: Sci-fi/ Action
Time: 2h 11mins
Director: Matt Reeves
Quick Summary: The fragile peace between apes and humans is threatened as mistrust and betrayal threaten to plunge both tribes into a war for dominance over the Earth.
I liked the funky tribal paint they used to decorate themselves.
I liked the previous film. I really liked this one as this one takes everything from the last one and just improves on it. However, I will say the first hour was a little bit slow so it lost my attention a couple of times. Granted, this needed to be slow to build up the main conflict.
The CGI is so much more impressive this time. The ape's fur looks so realistic in some of the scenes and yet again I had fully forgotten these were fake apes. They feel so real and I think that's what makes this one work so much more. To add to this you can actually tell each ape apart from various little changes to their appearances or how they move which is honestly so cool to me. Though it is a little funny to me that the ape that looks the scariest and most Battle scared is the villain. Shocker.
Admittedly I found the humans to be pretty boring and not that interesting. They were just kinda there for the most part. I was there for the ape drama. Which said, this has some of the most realistic gritty, dark, battles and fights I have seen. A moral battle between staying safe and protecting yourself through battle and winning a war, defeating the humans; or trusting them and choosing protection through mutual trust and willingness to help each other. I also like how this was built up from two apes who have had two different experiences with humans. One learns compassion and empathy, and the other learns only hate and pain.
Going back to the action. I am glad the first half of this film was slow so we could build up to an all-out war full of apes riding horses, duel-wielding guns, grenades, and fire absolutely everywhere. While I didn't care too much about the humans, I was so invested in the apes who didn't want to fight and their struggle against their new forced leader. The whole thing battles against various power plays for various things, which I was worried would become hard to follow but honestly it made the film so much more compelling and intense as these various battles and fights go on.
One of the themes this brings to light is how, even if a group strives for peace, there will always be one person trying to fight. No matter the situation, they believe that they are right and this is shown in both the humans and the apes. Almost as if we aren't that different deep down. Also, Poor Ceaser. This guy has been through the most brutal character developments which are admittedly really interesting to watch because they're so complex and have many factors to the decisions he makes. Still one of the best leaders I have ever seen with such a powerful stance too.
Again, a wonderful thing this film does like the previous one is it's full of references to the original. Still, it manages to keep this, pay tribute and keep its own story, nothing feels crammed in or tacked on just because. Also, it's amazing to see how much the talking aspect of the apes has improved. From one or minimal-word answers, we get sort of primate or early learning sentences. However, it seems Ceaser has the best understanding of the spoken language since most of the apes choose to speak in sign language which was pretty neat.
This is brilliant and expanding and just adding more to the world and the apes we are presented with. It's rich with emotional depth and worldbuilding, I couldn't help falling in love with the whole world and I was left eager for more after this.
9/10
"Koba: Caesar weak!
Caesar: Koba weaker."
"Koba: Koba fight for apes!
Caesar: Koba fight for Koba."
"Caesar: I always think... ape better than human. I see now... how much like them we are."
Poor Ash didn't deserve his brutal death
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