War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

I own this movie on DVD.

Rounding out this new trilogy of Planet of the Ape movies, we come to War. Again, this series continues to thrive on incredible writing and amazing performances. Andy Serkis is acting his ass off in these movies and really should be getting awards for his motion capture and voice performances.

This film finally wraps up the story of Ceaser in this new timeline, and helps to tie these movies in to their connection with the original films, if they are of the same timeline. Or it could even be setting up a new run of those films set in this timeline.

I will still say that Dawn is the best of the trilogy, and I have a hard time deciding if Rise or War is the second best. Each one is still a 5 star film for sure.
I have some issues with the climactic battle of War, and some idiotic decisions on the military's side that take me out of the movie. If not for that last act, it could very well be the best of the three. But with that in mind, it's about on equal level to Rise.
This again, is very difficult to talk about without spoilers, so I'm leaving this vague.

A wonderful movie and the trilogy as a whole is a must see.

Mistake Status: Wasn't looking for any this time. Might go through these in the future.

Quantom X ★

Though I loved Rise and Dawn, I will admit I liked, but did not love War for the Planet of the Apes. The biggest praise I can give this movie, as well as the previous two, are the visual effects used to create the apes, including the motion capture performances to make their characters believable. Andy Serkis gives a great performance and I thought the character of Bad Ape offered some moments of humour. However, I did have some problems. First, the movie felt as if it lacked originality, the previous two felt like original stories, but this felt kinda derivative. The storyline was not as investing as the previous two. Another problem I had was that the human characters are almost pushed to the side, in the previous two, I grew a connection with both the human and ape sides, but in this movie, most of the humans felt like generic soldiers. I thought that the colonel and the soldier Preacher were humanised in some way, but that is really it. I also felt that the attempts at trying to be bleak felt kinda tedious. The emotional moments felt kinda flat in the first half, though the emotional moments were more effective in the second half. Overall, War was not as memorable or compelling as Rise or Dawn, but the visual effects and performances make this a serviceable conclusion to the trilogy.

Casual Person