War For The Planet Of The Apes Blu-Ray Review

Strong trilogies are something that are very hard to come by these days, with the likelihood that by the time you reach the third film in a series the wheels have almost come off in terms of sheer quality of content. While Captain America and The Dark Knight may be strong candidates to go against that idea, one trilogy that could almost be regarded as one of the best in the past decade is that of the remake variety, in the form of the rebirth of The Planet Of The Apes. With Rise and Dawn having captured a whole new audience – as well as those fans of the original – the trilogy-ending War For The Planet Of The Apes is here and it delivers the hammer blow in concluding the powerful story of Andy Serkis’ Caesar and the war between apes and humanity.

Following the aftermath of Koba’s actions at the end of the last film, humanity and apes are now at war. Full scale attacks are underway, with the last remaining humans banding together under the command of a dangerous Colonel (Woody Harrelson) who will do anything in his power to capture Caesar (Serkis), while the apes have evolved to the stage that they can now talk and fully utilise man-made weapons. The battle lines have been crossed and only one species can ultimately survive – will it be human or ape?

War continues with the rich vein of form that its predecessors helped build up and then simply knocks it out of the park with one of the best blockbusters to grace 2017. With the emotional connectivity growing stronger and the stakes getting even greater, it could have been easy for Matt Reeves’ trilogy-ender to go gung-ho with action sequences and explosiveness, but instead the film keeps its feet firmly on the ground and combines raw emotion with some truly terrifying scenes of warfare.

This is the strength of the Apes series as a whole, the sheer humanity at hand, with us humans taking more pity on the CGI character apes than the humans themselves, a stark reminder of the stunning work of not only the computer animation team behind the scenes but also the likes of Serkis, who has forged a truly dominating and wonderful character in Caesar. You only have to watch the range of emotions emanating from Caesar himself to see that he might as well be a human character, as we go through the emotions with him as chaos reigns all around. With such a core of emotion possessed within a film, it’s no surprise that War is an absolute trail-blazer of a blockbuster, delivering everything you would want from a movie experience.

It’s sad to say goodbye to such a strong trio of films and a world that has been built up as its own even from the original content, but War is the perfect bow out and has solidified the Apes series as one of the best in recent times. All hail Caesar!

War For The Planet Of The Apes is out on DVD and Blu-Ray now.