War For The Planet Of The Apes

(M) ★★★★

Director: Matt Reeves.

Cast: Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Steve Zahn, Karin Konoval, Amiah Miller, Terry Notary, Ty Olsson, Michael Adamthwaite, Gabriel Chavarria.

Woody wished his sunnies had wipers.

WHEN it comes time to talk about the greatest trilogies of all time, the new Planet Of The Apes films need to be in the discussion.

That's not to say they're better than the original Star Wars trilogy or Lord Of The Rings or Toy Story, but Apes deserves a spot at least in the top 10, maybe even top five.

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes were both far better than anyone expected - the first one because the bad taste of Tim Burton's re-imagining lingered, and the second because it was largely assumed the first one was a fluke and sequelitis was sure to set in.

So the expectations on War For The Planet Of The Apes were higher than they'd been all series. And, oh boy, War delivers.

The aftermath of Dawn sees humans and apes in an ongoing battle, with Caesar (Serkis) and his simian colony hiding in the North American woods, only fighting when they have to. But self-styled warlord The Colonel (Harrelson) wants complete victory and pushes Caesar to the edge, sparking a journey into the heart of darkness for the ape leader that threatens to end one of the species.

These films have been so great because they've consistently featured amazing characters and explored the human condition and such deep themes as love, hate, power, trust, revenge, forgiveness and other such meaty subjects. It just so happened that most of those characters were apes played by motion-captured humans, and the themes played out against a backdrop of rebooted dystopian sci-fi.

In other words, writer/director Matt Reeves, Rise director Rupert Wyatt, and trilogy writers Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver treated them as "proper" films, never letting the spectacle get in the way, and ensuring the incredible CG wizardry on show was used in the service of the story and not the other way around.

War does all of those things too. It takes Caesar - one of the best and most under-rated characters of the past decade - to dark places as it explores how far someone can be pushed before they set their morals aside and give into the bloodlust. Serkis is, yet again, nothing short of magnificent. The CG is seamless, but Serkis makes Caesar real. And then some. Remember how they gave Peter Jackson all the Oscars for Return Of The King, as if to acknowledge how good the whole LOTR trilogy was? They should do that for Andy Serkis. This performance is no better or worse than his incredible work in Rise or Dawn but he's never even been nominated. Give him some recognition, Academy.

Serkis' fellow apes - Konoval, Notary, and newcomer Zahn - are also great. They never feel anything less than human, which has helped make the series a revelation.

Also great is Harrelson, the Colonel Kurtz-like figure waiting at the end of Caesar's metaphorical journey up river. Apocalypse Now is a big influence here - War is part-that, part-The Road, and part-The Great Escape - and Harrelson embraces that without being slavish to Brando. It also says something for the script and Harrelson's performance that The Colonel is a character that can be empathised with, despite being the Big Bad of the movie.

I have loved all three of these films, yet there's still a feeling of surprise that they're so good. Even now, having been enthralled and moved to tears by all three, it's difficult to shake. If you'd said 10 years ago that a prequel/reboot series of Planet Of The Apes films featuring mo-capped monkeys would become one of the best trilogies ever, you'd have been laughed out of town.

But you would have been so very, very right.