War for the Planet of the Apes Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.5

War for the Planet of the Apes Blu-ray Movie Review

Let my monkeys go.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 23, 2017

There’s a somewhat opaque meme of sorts being shared on some social media platforms that looks like a random set of numbers, but which turns out to be the posters’ personal rankings of the various Star Wars: The Complete Saga films. I have yet to see a similar undertaking for the Planet of the Apes: Legacy Collection, something that may indicate the perhaps subliminally held general opinion that none of the sequels to the original 1968 Planet of the Apes really completely lived up to the potential of the first film, whatever their individual strengths may have been. The first film appealed to my little boy consciousness enough that I actually went out and found a paperback copy of Pierre Boulle’s source novel (who woulda thunk that the same scribe who gave us The Bridge on the River Kwai also wrote this?), which in some ways is manifestly different from Rod Serling’s adaptive screenplay for the first film, even if the central premise of “smart apes” and “dumb humans” was left largely intact. The novel ends with a somewhat predictable twist involving a framing conceit, but that first film had one of the (then) more unexpected endings for a major science fiction film, one which contained what is still one of the most iconic images from that era of cinema. That very ending would have seemed to suggest that the original Planet of the Apes “should” have been a one off, but when box office receipts pour in as massively as they did upon the release of that film, it usually doesn’t take studio bean counters very long to start wondering how much more lucre is out there waiting to be deposited in their accounts. The first film gave birth to no fewer than four sequels, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Escape From the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes, and while there are certainly some fairly interesting ideas running through the follow ups, my sense is not too many fans would disagree all that strongly with the contention that there was definitely a law of diminishing returns with the franchise as it went on. It’s perhaps all the more notable, then, that the “reboot” series, which began with Rise of the Planet of the Apes and continued with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has arguably only gotten better as it has gone along (for the purposes of this review, we’ll just handily skip right over Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes, which I actually kinda sorta liked, at least more than a lot of other people with whom I’ve discussed the film).

According to several online articles, co-writers Matt Reeves (who also directed) and Mark Bomback cite any number of previous cinematic referents that helped shape War for the Planet of the Apes’ novelistic screenplay. Interestingly, the film adaptation of Boulle’s The Bridge on the River Kwai was among them, specifically with regard to the film’s depiction of the relationship between Caesar (Andy Serkis, via motion capture) and this film’s main human antagonist, The Colonel (Woody Harrelson), a relationship which supposedly echoes the one between the characters played by Alec Guinness and Sessue Hayakawa in the David Lean classic. But in researching the background for this review, I was actually not surprised to see a couple of other, ostensibly more “weird” seeming, influences mentioned, including The Ten Commandments, since in a very real way Caesar’s “journey” in this film, both literally and figuratively, seems to have certain Mosaic (as in Moses) tendencies.

One of the more obvious referents, in this case non-ape, comes courtesy of the character of The Colonel, who seems to be unabashedly modeled on Colonel Kurtz (down to his rank, of course) from Apocalypse Now. Even some of the visual presentations of the character seem to mimic choices Brando and Coppola made for their film, and there’s no denying the similarity in a remote outpost offering a paranoiac leader in charge of a large cult (in this particular case one which includes both humans and simians who are “donkeys”, i.e., slaves of a sort who act as aides to the humans).

The unexpectedly moving narrative of this film is in essence a long setup aching to deliver the inevitable final showdown between Caesar and The Colonel, which of course occurs, but not until a series of often fascinating character motivations are revealed. Caesar, as is his wont, seems to prefer peace in the forest with his simian kin, but due to the vagaries of fate, he finds himself thrust into warrior status, perhaps against his will. But even this element is nicely shaded, as Caesar is in fact on a mission of vengeance for reasons which won’t be spoiled in this review. The entire evolution (no pun intended) of Caesar’s already fairly complex character is one of War for the Planet of the Apes’ most accomplished achievements and is brought vividly to life by Andy Serkis’ performance, which is a marvel of motion capture elegance combined with CGI near perfection.

There are a number of really interesting sidebars in this feature which may in fact not be that germane to the overall thrust of the narrative, but which neatly refer to Apes canon while perhaps setting the stage for a fourth film. One of these elements deals with humans who are increasingly unable to speak, including a little girl named (speaking of canon) Nova (Amiah Miller), who ends up accompanying Caesar and his crew on their quest, a nurturing aspect to the apes which ironically probably tends to “humanize” them. There are also obvious visual referents to some of the previous (original) films, including a nice twist on the migrants on horseback at the beach scene which capped the first film.

In my estimation, about the only thing that slightly hobbles this effort is its arguable over length. At almost two and a half hours, War for the Planet of the Apes certainly takes advantage of its sprawling narrative and epic visual ambitions, but it seems padded at times, especially in the last hour or so, where skirmishes keep recurring without any real forward momentum. That’s a small price to pay, however, for a film which delivers as much raw emotional power as this film manages to do. If a social media ranking meme of these “new” Planet of the Apes movies ever becomes a thing, my hunch is a lot of fans are going to have a very hard time deciding on which one is best.

War for the Planet of the Apes Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

War for the Planet of the Apes is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Captured with Arri 65s (according to the closing credits) and finished at a 2K DI, this is another stunner of a presentation of the new Apes films from Fox on Blu-ray. While a lot of this film is ominously dark and shadowed, detail levels are often jaw droppingly precise, especially in some potentially problematic areas like fur and hair rendering on the CGI characters. There's a cold, dreary, kind of gray ambience to a lot of the outdoor material, but the integration of CGI elements and "real life" locations continues to be a visually arresting experience, and one which is delivered with excellent detail levels and a lack of compression anomalies across the board. Even the aggressively graded sequences (many in cool tones favoring blues and grays) tend to offer superior detail levels, especially in the many extreme close-ups.

War for the Planet of the Apes Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

War for the Planet of the Apes features a great sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track, one which gets off to a somewhat unusual and atavistic sounding start with what I assume to be composer Michael Giacchino's "recasting" of the venerable Alfred Newman Fox fanfare. As should probably be expected, the film begins with an epic showdown between simians and humans in the forest, and right off the bat it's clear the sound design is going to offer a glut of surround activity, with elements like soaring arrows and explosive charges rampaging through the soundstage. There are of course a number of battles in the film, as might be gleaned by its very title, but even in ostensibly quieter moments, there is nuanced attention paid to the ambient environmental sounds of the forest, or even the "concentration camp" where many of the apes end up. Dialogue, effects and score are all rendered flawlessly, with excellent fidelity and extremely wide dynamic range.

War for the Planet of the Apes Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 23:03) are often kind of cool to watch simply because they feature the human actors in their motion capture getups, before any CGI was added. These all also offer an optional audio commentary by Matt Reeves.


• Waging War for the Planet of the Apes (1080p; 29:38) is a better than average EPK with good interviews with the cast and crew.


• All About Caesar (1080p; 12:40) focuses on the character in general, as well as some of the motion capture and photo realistic CGI elements that go into the creation of the character.


• WETA: Pushing Boundaries (1080p; 10:36) is a great piece on the film's astounding special effects.


• Music for Apes (1080p; 6:20) has some fun footage of the recording of the score with composer Michael Giacchino.


• Apes: The Meaning of It All (1080p; 20:15) is a nice overview stretching back to the 1968 feature.


• The Apes Saga: An Homage (1080p; 7:48) also returns to some of the "classic" films to revisit some underlying concepts of the franchise.


• Audio Commentary by Matt Reeves


• Concept Art Gallery

  Characters (1080p; 00:43)

  Drawings (1080p; 00:38)

  Paintings (1080p; 6:58)

  Note: All of the galleries offer both Manual Advance and Auto Advance options. The timings are for the Auto Advance options.


• Theatrical Trailers (1080p; 6:54)

War for the Planet of the Apes Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

What was the last franchise you can name where the sequels arguably just kept getting better? I doubt even fans of Star Wars would suggest that that franchise was a straight up climb in quality each time. But these new Planet of the Apes films have been a wonder both technically and perhaps even more amazingly from a story and character perspective, and those aspects are once again stunningly on display throughout War for the Planet of the Apes. A little judicious trimming might have made this an unabashed 5.0 for me personally, but even at a bit too long the film has enduring emotional resonance and is a new benchmark for motion capture and general VFX excellence. Technical merits are first rate, the supplementary package enjoyable, and War for the Planet of the Apes comes Highly recommended.