For Caesar

For anyone dedicated to watching everything and anything Planet of the ApesAlthough originally started with the 1963 novel, La Planete des singes, it's fair to say that the Apes franchise truly began with the 1968 film that kick started the original Fox film series and has helped tto keep these intelligent primates in the public conciousness for years., the franchise has been something of a rollercoaster. The early films, while not universally great, had a good thing going for them. They were interesting, serious, thoughtful sci-fi films. The first movie had that twist everyone, of course, knows, and the rest of the movies from that original series built on the ideas and found new ways to explore the concept of a planet taken over by apes. While many of the follow ups (the two TV shows, Tim Burton’s aborted reboot) weren’t solid continuations, the franchise eventually found new life with 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes. From that point forward, the apes were Summer Blockbuster viewing.

The reboot series, headlined by Andy Serkis’s motion-capture performance as Caesar, saw three solid entries – Rise of the Planet of the Apes followed by Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes. Each told their own story in this world where humans have been ravaged by a disease (of their own making) while super-intelligent apes take over the crumbling world. That series ended as a natural trilogy, with Andy Serkis even hanging up his mo-cap suit, saying he was done playing Caesar. While continuations were possible, one would assume they’d have to be very different movies.

Seven years since War for the Planet of the Apes, we finally have that continuation, but it doesn’t really feel like that different of a film from what we saw in the previous movies. Apes are dominant, the humans are still moving around, and the world of the Planet of the Apes does feel a little more worn down, a little more like the version we expect from the very first film released all the way back in 1968. And yet, still, the film feels like it’s holding back, stuck looking backwards at the previous three films instead of truly moving forward into a new age for this franchise. Someone in the production process clearly wasn’t ready to make the big leap and have things truly change in this franchise, and if I had a guess (considering a few things we’re going to discuss) that decision came from Disney (who own 20th Century Studios and the Planet of the Apes franchise).

After a brief moment honoring the death of Caesar (right after the events of War for the Planet of the Apes, and spoilers for that film even though you’re here to discuss the sequel so you should have known better), we just ahead “Many Generations Later” to a small Apes settlement on the outskirts of the ruins of (we assume) San Francisco (where the previous films took place). We’re introduced to Noa (Owen Teague), a member of the Eagle Clan, a group of chimpanzees who raise eagles as part of their hunting rituals. It’s the day before bonding day, a day when the teenage apes – this time around Noa along with Soona (Lydia Peckham) and Anaya (Travis Jeffery) – ritualistically bond with their newly hatched eagles. However, after successfully gathering his egg from the highest tower (which we’re told, and shown, is a difficult climb), a human girl comes into his village at night and smashes it (it’s an accident, but still).

Noa has to go out into the night to get another egg, but instead of finding his prize he finds raiders from another colony. Chimps and apes working together in the name of Proximus Caesar, out on the hunt for a human girl, Mae (Freya Allan). They don’t find the girl, but they trace her back to the Eagle tribe. They capture all the tribe members (other than Noa) and burn the settlement down. Noa survives, and goes after them, on a quest to save his people and find out why they were attacked. He’ll collect allies along the way on this adventure across the… well, you know the title of the movie.

At its core, this isn’t a bad film. It’s a decent adventure of an ape going across a world he doesn’t really know, looking for his people so he can save them from some power-mad group of antagonists. If that sounds familiar, it is because that’s not too far off from the plot of the third film in this series, War for the Planet of the Apes. The details are a little different – an ape as the lead villain instead of a human, a character other than Caesar as the focus of our adventure – but by and large this does feel like a retread of the movies we’ve seen before.

It’s not bad in that regard because those were well made, well written movies, and this one is also well made and decently written. It’s not fresh or creatively interesting, though, and that’s where I feel like the film falls down. You get the vibe, watching this movie, that the Disney higher ups weren’t really interested in making a new Planet of the Apes movie. They wanted a new product to sell, yes, but not one that strayed too far from what came before or had anything new to say. They wanted something safe, unchallenging, familiar. That’s what they got, and it’s fine, but it doesn’t really inspire.

A big drawback for the film is that it doesn’t have Andy Serkis in the lead role. Serkis made Caesar, imbued as much of himself into that character as he did for Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. There was live in every movement, true expression bleeding through into the performance underneath all the CGI. He nailed it there, but new actor Teague isn’t able to give as much life or character to Noa. The character feels flatter, less interesting, less than. He’s not a solid heart for the film, not like Caesar was, and the performance is as much to blame for this as the story.

But there’s also just this cynical, capitalistic vibe to the movie. The previous three films were all standalone adventures. Yes, they tied together into a trilogy, but when they were first made it wasn’t expected that Rise of the Planet of the Apes would be the first part of a trilogy or that Dawn of the Planet of the Apes would automatically be followed up by War for the Planet of the Apes. That happened organically. This time, though, Disney wanted sequels, stating this movie would be the first part of a pre-planned trilogy, that we should know we were getting sequels because the company required it. And that sucks the energy out of the film.

There’s a plot thread (that I won’t spoil) that doesn’t resolve itself in this movie. It’s set up, we see it move forward, and even at the end of the film it’s still progressing along, but there’s no conclusion to that storyline here, just a very Marvel-like tease of “what to expect next time on the Planet of the Apes.” Disney can’t let us have a movie to enjoy, they have to sell us on a subscription to a commodity. They have to take this franchise and make it into another MCU or Star Wars. Audiences have already shown they’re tired of the perpetual storytelling model. I don’t know why Disney thought they could get away with it here.

But then it has been seven years and people are coming to watch this new film. Already, in its first weekend out, it’s $130 Mil at the Box office, and will easily clear its $160 Mil budget to become a success. More of these films will come, and we’ll have to see if people really are tired of sequels after sequels or if it was just Marvel and Lucasfilm that are burned out. I think it’s all nakedly capitalistic sequels, but only time will tell on that score.

The fact remains, though, that this is a pretty average film without a lot of creativity behind it. It’s pretty, and it tells an okay (retread of a) story. It’s not the sweeping, awesome epic that any of the previous films managed, but it’s clearly sating the need of audiences for more Planet of the Apes. I love the franchise, and I’ll show up for these films… I would just like it if next time the movie can give us something new and interesting and, above all, sweeping enough for the audience to get caught up in the story. That didn’t happen here and, maybe, under Disney’s watchful eye, it never will.