30. War for the Planet of the Apes

This is another film which is a franchise- this time we're on number 3 and I clearly haven't watched either of the previous films. However, much to my delight, the film summarises its predecessors in 2 short sentences right at the beginning, so as you'd imagine, saving myself 3hours+ of my life and it's in my good books.

From what I can gather, something happened involving a virus or something, and apes started to evolve to become more human-like. This caused distress to humankind, who then found themselves at war with these new badass monkeys.

Originally I thought us humans would be the goodies (because I, a human, am a number one goodie), however, it soon becomes clear it may not be as simple as that. The film follows Caeser's (Ape leader and also Andy Serkis) epic journey to regain justice after his family were brutally attacked.

I surprised myself by becoming really immersed in the film, as I really didn't think it was my thing. I was pulled in by the political values and emotive stories told by the apes. The CGI and voice acting was incredible, as you really start to have empathy for the monkey tribe, despite them not all being verbal. Alongside this, there was exciting and interesting action scenes, gripping from the beginning, to the end.

Unfortunately, because I crave for a realistic film (Where my docu-films at???), I kept transporting myself back to the outskirts of Manchester, realising I was watching several apes riding horses, and there were moments where I found it hard to contain myself. This was also not helped at all, by the film trying to add an element of humour. 'Bad Ape' (Steve Zahn) wears a hat and bodywarmer combo and joins us for the lols halfway through the movie speaking broken English to lighten the mood. In this case I found it just distracted away from the storyline, as oppose to enhancing it.

Another point I did enjoy, was the gorgeous cinematography. There are some amazing shots of Canada, almost rivalling the beauty of 2015's 'The Revenant'. I was half expecting an ape to cut open a horse and sleep in it.

Overall, War for the Planet of the Apes was a pleasant surprise for me, providing a great story, and one that made some great, relevant points. Despite this, there still were some faults to the film, and for that reason, I will give it a respectable 7.5/10