OK this is a weird one because this movie definitely isn’t new and it isn’t one that should catch much controversy, I just felt I had to get out my feelings about when I could much better be using my time to write poetry amirite haha?
It’s because I really liked the first two that I feel I have to get out my utter disappointment with this movie. I mean I was never super hyped to watch it because I waited this long to watch it but I was sort of saving it as a solid movie to watch when I was sick of watching the trash they put out these days and pass for good content.

And I’m watching it and getting into it and it’s all good then the main plot kicks in and it’s kind of predictable, a standard sort of revenge movie set up oh and Woody Harrelson is in it, like he’s in fucking everything these days.

He’s actually one of the big problems I have with this movie, not him personally I watched him in that three billboards movie made by the guy who did seven psychopaths and that’s probably the best movie I’ve seen all year, that and Blade Runner 2049, fantastic movies.
No my problem with him is he can’t carry a movie. He works great in in true detective bouncing of Mathew Mconahay (I don’t care how his name is spelt haha) or alongside Jessie Eisenberg in Zombieland. Harrelson as part of an ensemble cast slips right in perfectly.
But in this movie it’s literally just him and Andy Serkis. I mean wtf did you really run out of money from the first two movies? The first two movies are literally brimming with excellent actors delivering fantastic performances and each film has at it’s heart a human story.

What’s the human story in this movie? Oh there isn’t one because humans are evil and war like and should just all die.
The other two movies have progression, you follow each character as the plot unfolds and they’re paced really well, they feel like journey’s and have satisfying conclusions and you feel like something has been learned on both the human and ape side.

But that’s the main problem with making movies that are prequels, we all know the people are going to basically go extinct and become the classic planet of the apes. On the other hand these movies really didn’t follow the lore very closely so I could have seen a twist coming where that didn’t happen. It just seems like they wanted to wrap it all up in these movie- humans all die now. It felt sort of forced.
The pace was bad there weren’t enough set pieces. Caeser is in his cave then badness happens needs revenge, goes to place where bad guy is, bad stuff happens, bad guy dies. There really isn’t enough there, there aren’t enough characters or story to sink your teeth into in comparison to the other two films. There isn’t a single likeable human character aside from the little girl who totally pointless spoilers is called ‘Nova’ a character in the original movies there’s no way she could be because those movies are set hundreds of years later haha. So I guess that was just dumb fan service that maybe a handful of people would get.

I really just struggled to identify with the apes, I know shocking. I like Caeser as a character, I liked following his arch in the previous movies but he seemed very two dimensional in this movie and Woody Harrelson was also a two dimensional non-villain.
Also whereas in the previous movie the messages were subtle and you could sort of compare the apes to a number of groups in terms of metaphors this movie is totally on the nose about it.

They’re literally using the apes as slaves and whipping them – ok then.

It just came off as disingenuous and dumb and tacky.

Moreover I didn’t like the movie because it tries to make you celebrate the death of the human race. I’d always hoped these movies would have been more optimistic and maybe changed the outcome. But by the end of the movie they’re expecting audiences to cheer as all the humans who are just faceless soldiers are wiped out. It just didn’t sit right with me.
Because you’re supposed to be like ‘well now that those evil humans are gone the apes are free to create a totally peaceful society of their own’ when anyone who’s seen the original movies knows they go back to basically feudalism and it’s totally chaos and there are wars between the various factions of apes constantly. So they’re not only not an improvement on humans they’re literally worse.

I dunno, I just see all the praise for this movie and it’s just shocking to me because it was such a step down from the previous two. I just had to get my thoughts out.

Venting complete haha. And I know I’m not just a wanker who can’t enjoy anything because I literally loved Blade Runner 2049 and I thought I would hate it and I watched a movie called the ritual last night which was pretty great so….

See you…