I had found Rise of the Planet of the Apes "very Hollywood," by which I mean entertaining but geared toward the lowest common denominator. Of course, you have to expect a lot of simplicity in a story about apes with slightly enhanced brains who want to escape captivity. The sequel promised a rather different plot but had the same IMDb rating, so I decided to give it a try.
A detail I had missed at the end of Rise was the start of "simian flu." The opening herein might remind you uncomfortably of the COVID-19 pandemic, but this one is much worse, reducing the world's human population to the 0.2% who can resist it. The maybe hundreds of survivors in the San Francisco area hope to reach and restore a hydroelectric dam, which requires a handful of them to pass through the uplifted apes' claimed forest. Head chimp Caesar (Andy Serkis) is pretty patient, having been raised by kind humans and sensing a similar type in Malcolm (Jason Clarke), but paranoid tensions mount on both sides....
I appreciate that this conflict is not presented as shallowly as one good group and one bad. Most of each seem basically good. Among the nice humans are Malcolm's wife, ex-CDC nurse Ellie (Keri Russell), and son, sketch artist Alexander (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Among the nice apes are Caesar's ailing mate, Cornelia (Judy Greer), and adult son, Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston). Previously established allies Rocket (Terry Notary) and Maurice the orang (Karin Konoval) are still here too. The main human jerks are Carver (Kirk Avecedo), a dam expert who's openly disrespectful and quick to pull a gun; and Dreyfus (Gary Oldman), a community leader who defaults to jingoism. If anyone can be called evil, it's Koba (Toby Kebbell), a deceiver who wants to kill or imprison every human plus every ape who doesn't go his way. How ironic for a bonobo.
This is not as much of a war movie as the ads made me think. Violence does not begin in earnest until the third act, and even then, many on each side are reluctant to kill. Indeed, if you're looking for an action-packed 130 minutes, you may get bored for a while, particularly when the focus is on apes talking to each other in a sign language, which is not subtitled like before. (They can speak broken English, but haltingly.)
The future depicted in the original Planet of the Apes is still a long way off, and not just because humans retain their intelligence. The apes show little culture beyond riding horses and hunting with spears. You'd think the humans' superior firepower (one thing that wasn't lost with the fall of the nation) would overwhelm any physical advantages, ending the war before it could really begin, but don't underestimate what can happen the moment a sneaky ape grabs an automatic. You could read an anti-gun message into humans appearing safer when unarmed -- and Caesar, unlike Koba, would rather dispose of guns than keep them.
I didn't kid myself that things would be looking up for the humans in the end. We know the overall direction of the timeline. Nevertheless, it does get pretty heartwarming in the face of heartbreak.
Yes, the franchise is still very Hollywood, but I liked this round better for its emotional impact. Will I take a chance on the threequel, War for the Planet of the Apes? Maybe. It'll take me a while to get in the right frame of mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment