The third and final film in the reboot series significantly escalates the drama of the first two (Rise of... and Dawn of...), ramping it up to apocalyptic levels while retaining sharp focus and intelligence.
Apes and humans are now at war, with “Caesar” (Andy Serkis) and his companions being hunted down by army forces to determine the dominant species on Earth. These soldiers are led by Colonel J. Wesley McCullough (Woody Harrelson), a crazed messiah-like figure clearly modelled along the lines of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. (Oddly enough, the film makes that connection explicit with graffiti in a tunnel that reads “Ape-pocalyse now”.) The showdown intensifies when the apes are enslaved and a rival human faction comes to the military facility to attack the Colonel and his men.
It’s an emotional story with a surprisingly satisfying ending. I had no idea how it could be resolved, but director Matt Reeves pulled it off as he did with the previous instalment.
As with the rest of the trilogy, this film asks profound questions about human behaviour. It repeatedly shows the apes as being more compassionate than the destructive humans intent on their self-defeating struggle for power. There’s a disturbing brutality for a “12”-certificate film, made all the more affecting because the CGI apes seem so uncannily real.
At a key moment close to the resolution, Caesar finds himself in a position to obliterate the Colonel but acts more “humanely” than any of the humans. It’s a sobering message for all of us that animals might actually be more sophisticated than we like to believe we are.
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