AS the title suggests, war is an important element of the third installment of the Planet of the Apes reboot series. Most of the characters have been established in the earlier films. We know Maurice is the kind, intelligent orangutan; we know Caesar is the brave and just chimpanzee leader, and we know that the humans mostly tend to come in that strange mix of fearful and brutish, and so on. Therefore, with this final film, the director and writers

seem to spend a lot more time using their already developed characters to highlight their important messages, while also showcasing their extraordinary flair for visual storytelling. The amalgamation of these elements gives us the funny, emotional, and highly watchable film that is War for the Planet of the Apes.

Caesar (Andy Serkis) and his clan of highly-intelligent apes are trying to live peacefully in their forest home when they are brutally attacked by a band of rogue human soldiers. There are casualties and the clan of apes is forced to relocate, with Caesar and some of his companions setting off on another journey to find the Colonel (Woody Harrelson), the leader of the rogue soldiers who are so intent on getting rid of the apes. On the way to the Colonel, the troop of apes find a human child, later named Nova, and with Maurice’s encouragement, they decide to keep her with them rather than let her die in the cold. This journey to the Colonel and the final showdown between the apes and the soldiers is basically what makes up the plot of War of the Planet of the Apes. It is part-commentary on war, part-commentary on humanity, and it is also a full-blown revenge saga.

The scenes of war, particularly the moving overhead shot in the beginning, coupled with the beautiful and realistic depictions of the apes, are sure to ensure that this film gains at least a nomination in the Visual Effects category at next year’s Academy Awards. Matt Reeves, the director, uses everything available to him to produce explosions, gunfire, aircraft, fights of such immense realism and intensity that the audience often forgets that half of what is seen on the screen was shot using a green-screen and computers, but such is the magic of modern-day technology, and it is fully employed in all its glory in this particular film.

The cast, particularly those involved in the motion-capture performances, such as Andy Serkis, truly put their all into the elements of performance that would help to make their unusual performances work. The actors who played the apes strongly utilised their voices – and the range of tones and idiolects was quite enough to distinguish the apes from one another, even in cases when they looked alike. Furthermore, the emotions – which are an important part of the film – could have been lost in all the visual effects involved. However, the cast ensured that the emotions remained intact. In fact, the emotions in the film (in such scenes as the aftermath of the attack on Caesar’s clan, or the two scenes involving Nova, the flower, and Luca, the gorilla, or the scene where Nova brings food to Caesar) are astoundingly amplified and there are certain parts of the film that will make everyone, except the stone-hearted, cry.

Another interesting thing to note is the way war is portrayed in the film. There are several references to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (based on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and considered a classic anti-war film) that find themselves integrated into War of the Planets of the Apes. A subtle reference would be the graffiti of “Ape-ocalypse” scrawled on a random wall. However, a more blatant reference would be in the depiction of the character of the Colonel, presumably based on Kurtz – the rogue, corrupted ivory trader who becomes a sort of deity among his followers and establishes a base in the jungle where he carries out several misdeeds, which is similar to the way the Colonel in War for the Planet of the Apes seems to be deified by the soldiers who follow his commands, and also in the way he has also departed from the aims of his original occupation in order to satisfy his own corruption and needs.

This bit of intertexuality is one of the most fascinating aspects of War for the Planet of the Apes and there is no doubt that people who like Apocalypse Now or people who have read Heart of Darkness will enjoy the film, on account of its storyline, characters and visuals, most definitely, but also because of the connections that this film makes with those two other canonical works of film and literature.