Director: Matt Reeves
Cast: Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Steve Zahn, Amiah Miller
Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.
Did I Like It: I’m a little resentful at myself for having seen Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) before re-watching this one. I probably would have been a little less forgiving of Kingdom had this one been fresher in my head. On the other hand, this one hits just a little bit harder because it is not only the final entry in Caesar’s (Serkis) story, but also the likely (but not definitely) last time we will see Serkis in the series*.
While I was still writing The Once and Future Orson Welles I did a blog post reflecting my own anxieties about how trilogy finales are always a tough nut to take in (to say nothing of cracking it in on the part of the creator). I didn’t include this film in those posts. Now, that’s largely because the film hadn’t been released then, but is also much more because this one sticks the landing. Shedding the need for exposition outside of a few brief (and they are brief) title cards, we’re able to tell a ruthlessly simple story with Caesar. Even references to films in the original series are kept to a bare minimum, and are oblique at that. To my count, only the Alpha-Omega regiment and the human girl’s (Miller) being named Nova, this is an almost completely original journey into the world of the apes, even if the general plot is roughly similar to the much, much worse Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973).
Serkis has brought the character so far in a short amount of time, flawlessly playing the coming-of-age Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) through to the old man having to confront his own well-earned hatred here. It’s rare that a high-genre movie released in this century can really grapple with these kinds of questions, and then come to grips with the fact that the answers might not be nearly as important as coming to peace with the questions themselves. His tragedy and—if primates might forgive the expression—humanity come through to culminate this series on its strongest note, not just managing to save itself from the natural embarrassment of a part 3.
*I always got the sense that Serkis could certainly play his own descendants, especially as Roddy McDowall did so in the previous series, but alas, as Matt Reeves moves on to Gotham City, this series may truly be over here.