A tidal wave of khaki and brown - War for the planet of the Apes review.

I personally struggled to stay motivated with this one. Whilst we should applaud the magician worthy skills of the CGI technicians, I found myself emotionally disconnected from entire story. The pace of the plot meanders through and I felt myself in the back seat of the cinema mentally winging ‘are we nearly there yet?’.

Structurally I think it is always a rocky choice to put a fight scene at the very start of the film as even in the case of sequels we are not as emotionally invested in the outcome of the characters and you loose the important fight scene tension. I needed the person beside me to check my pulse for how little I felt for the opening battle. If we had seen some touching exchange between ape families with some heartfelt music I may have felt more about the outcome of the opening 15 minutes.

Planet of the apes doesn't offer much in the way of relief from the dreary colours, angst and soggy weather. The film itself seems to lack a sense of humour, the only exception being the token laugh an hour character ‘bad ape’ who was charming but not enough to save the film for me. I don't want to let it go by unmentioned though that I think Andy Serkis is Devine and endlessly watchable. I think he portrayed Caesar in a captivatingly sincere way and it was almost a well crafted duet between Serkis and the breath taking capabilities of modern CGI. This was an undoubtably powerful performance.

Unfortunately I’m gonna have to return to the teensy matter of me not enjoying the film. So; the film seemed to be minus an internal logic I felt. There where many moments when I was baffled by the observed lack of continuity, one such moment in particular was when Nova weeped over an ape who she had one token exchange with yet when her father died she didn't seem to even have an opinion on it! I think I had an issue with Nova in general as I feel without her the film would have been the same film. Rather unlike powerful use of the young child mute ‘Laura’ in the film ‘Logan’ who was breathtaking and had an unforgettable energy and presence even in the section of the film when she wasn't speaking. I don't blame the actress she seemed to have an innocent yet mature sincerity about her I just think her character should have been written with more purpose especially since there weren't much in the way of intriguing female roles in this film.

Right at the start of the film a drunk man arrived late and marched across the front of the auditorium with his bottle of water held high victoriously (perhaps he sneaked in) he continued to walk with vigour until he collided with the wall opposite. I know that the people I watched Planet of the Apes with also weren't particularly taken with the film because when we filed out the cinema the drunk man was the first and only thing my friends wanted to talk about.