The big special-effects-laden tentpoles studios release
during the summer months have a reputation for being empty spectacles and
little more. That’s not always the case, but we see a lot of loud, stupid trash
in theaters this time of year (cough Transformers 5 cough).
Over the last two movies, the revamped Planet of the Apes
franchise has shown audiences that there’s room for intelligence, emotion, and
nuance in the warmer months, and they prove it once again with War for the Planet of the Apes.
Like many film fans, when I hear Hollywood plans to reboot a
franchise I love and adore, my immediate reaction is not positive. That said,
there have been incredible reboots and re-launches, and for my money, the best
is the revamped Planet of the Apes saga. Rise of the
Planet of the Apes was better than anyone expected, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is legitimately great—it wound up on my top ten list that year. The next chapter, War for the Planet of the
Apes drops summer 2017, and if this first trailer is in any way
representative of the finished product, good golly we’re in for another
fantastic ape-versus-human adventure.
For the most part, end of the year awards are complete and
total bullshit. We could go through list of films from every single year and pick
out which movie should have won and Oscar, what actor or
actress deserved the Golden Globe, and point out all the best picture winners
that have faded into obscurity while movies that didn’t even get a nomination
have become universally regarded as classics. Awards are little more than a way
for the movie industry to congratulate itself, and many serious movie fans
don’t put a great deal of stock into them as anything more than a curiosity.
Less than a year later I barely remember who took home what trophy. Still, with
the release of Matt Reeves’ phenomenal Dawn of the Planet of theApes, the subject of praise and actors wearing motion capture suits
has come up quite a bit.
