War For The Planet Of The Apes Review

War for the Planet of the Apes The third instalment of the reboot follows on from the second, Caesar still fighting for his forest and the humans hell-bent on killing them all. This time, the humans have some apes (that they call "donkeys") helping them, apes outcast after joining Koba in the last movie. The movie starts off well, then kinda plods along slowly, building suspense. After the evil Colonel (Woody Harrelson) kills his wife and eldest son while looking for Caesar, Caesar decides to move the apes to a new home which his son had found, having just returned with the news. Caesar isn't joining them, however, he goes off after the Colonel. Three other apes (Maurice, Luca and Rocket) join him to help, against his initial wishes. They find from the albino traitor Winter that the Colonel has moved to a base called the border, where he is joining with more soldiers from the north. They eventually find the base with the help of Bad Ape and a little girl they find who can not speak who Maurice insists on taking with them. Once they get there, they find, to Caesar's horror, that his clan have all been rounded up and forced to build a wall. Caesar realises that he has not came to the border to join with the troops, moreover they are coming to take him out because he's grown deluded with power and began killing his own men if they contract the flu virus. Cue some tragic scenes which are very very reminiscent of the concentration camps in WW2, apes being forced to work, beaten, starved and without water, and killed at the soldiers whim. While Caesar's sacrifice buys the apes food and water, he is displayed and still starved until the girl they rescued sneaks in and gives him some water and food. In the finale, there is a (predictable) twist but how well it is played out makes it less of a "really, that's how it ends?" and the focus is more on the internal struggle Caesar feels as he wishes to be different to Koba. I'd rate the movie 3.5/5, it's enjoyable and worth watching but a lot of the plot expects you to know enough about the whole franchise to not need it explaining in too much detail.