Why wasn’t I invited, conquest, not that’s been done, what about this “Battle for the…”, yeah, I saw that one too but war, I saw everything but a war but a war in this movie which is really the only problem, a misleading title, and a somewhat biblical ending maybe.

I appreciated all the throwbacks to the originals and I’m talking all the way back to the beginning “Planet of the Apes” though this movie sort of tells you that it will be the last but then again what do I know. It’s more a tear jerker than anything else so you should be prepared and for a movie with no war, maybe two battles tops it was violent and brutal. Also, some of “The Colonel’s” troops were a bit ironic, let’s just say Koba might disapprove, despite the reasoning for it, if there’s any…

Andy Serkis “Caesar” should be raking in the awards, along with Amiah Miller “The Girl” I don’t want to spoil that, and how about Karin Konoval “Maurice” and of course Steve Zahn for “Bad Ape” and the laughs. Good but really not war. So now that I have appeased Fandango what did I really think about this movie… it was awesome though the politicos among us might be in a twist and I have a tendency to read into things.

Personally, though I saw a tale of brotherhood in a way, in humanity without humans, anybody that watches animal videos on “YouTube” knows what I’m talking about. I saw apes, I saw a respect for the classic series, not without disappointments but you’ll be fully invested from beginning to end.

Andy Serkis is an awesome Caesar, now I’ve already said the cast is pretty much top notch but between Caesar, the little girl, and Maurice, there is just so much emotion being felt. Some people are going to be upset with the American imagery, why is American portrayed as the bad guys, if anything this movie has plenty of bad guys, including Caesar himself but if anything how many of us in the same position wouldn’t follow his set course.

Caesar from being king, to father, to outcast, to hero and everything in-between, and after such transformations what else could the ape have earned… can we just give Andy Serkis an award already? Now the little girl, with no spoken lines in the film was a breakout hit with me especially during the night scene in the camp, can I just say, Niagara Falls, because I wasn’t sobbing on anything like that. Maurice reminds me a lot of “Mandemus” or maybe “Virgil” from “Battle for the Planet of the Apes” the keeper of Caesar’s conscience but Virgil took Dante through Hell and it is the same thing here, I think.

“You are a good man with a good heart, and it’s hard for a good man to be a king.” – Black Panther (Feb 2018)

I don’t want to get all political here and when it comes to me and my country… it’s complicated but anyone that says America is the greatest nation on Earth is a moron. Now I don’t think this movie was saying America was bad but rather people were bad because the only truly decent individual in the whole movie was the little girl and it almost makes sense that she can’t talk. What about Caesar and the comparison to Koba, Caesar saw Koba in himself and that led him down a dark path that resulted in most of the movie even happening, because of it.

This movie is extremely well done considering I have seen people react so strongly to it and for that again the cast was great. Can I just say before I get into trouble that I’m proud to be an American and yeah we can make the country great again but why don’t people see that Trump is the bad guy, just saying The Colonel was better and Mad Caesar too.

“God wouldn’t know what… God wouldn’t know what he knows. If there is a God up there, he would have turned his back on us by now. And whoever made humanity will find no humanity here. No, sir. No, sir. So beware. Beware.” The Road

Bad Ape was about as human as you can get next to the child, maybe another reason people were so mad for a variety of reasons, some of his laughs were sort of cheap, others well deserved, and you have to remember when it came to doing something he did. I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about why I just couldn’t give this movie five stars it comes close though, so amazingly close.

“There are times when it is necessary to abandon our humanity to save humanity.” – The Colonel, War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

While I am loyal to Caesar myself there were times in the movie that make me question; the fact that you can see both hero and villain in the same light got to me some. As far as some of my favorite moments, when the child is named, or how about when Caesar is walking amongst the other apes, as they say, heavy is the head that wears the crown. All guys will understand the bro code between Caesar, Maurice, Rocket, and Luca, if men really could stand together like that worldwide maybe the humans in this film would have stood a chance but no.

Speaking of brotherhood and Luca, that was one of the things that irked me, Caesar had a gorilla lieutenant in Dawn and yet another one in “Rise”… I don’t want to spoil it. For the last time, there was no war, and some of the troops had no reason to side with The Colonel, and even amongst Caesar’s apes, you can look at one and see, yeah you know there was no mystery to him. The ending though reminded me of lessons in church, one of those War of the Worlds type of endings sadly.

I’ll probably go and see it again, and I’m taking somebody so yes the movie does have my vote and don’t mind the super duper patriots amongst us if it helps just repeat they’re just a bunch of apes. Then again four stars and a few good endorsements who knows, War… Wouldn’t It Be Nice?