‘Sunrise’ 1927 & ‘War for the Planet of the Apes’ 2017
Home from the new Planet of the Apes film which I went to with good spirits, believing that it had been well received, generally, I decided to put my toe into the water of Murnau who I don’t know. Sunrise, the Oscar winner for Best Film in 1927.
I found War as plodding and tedious as the second one, although I did like the first one, quite a bit. Humanity, as displayed in War are a very cliched group, illustrated with a one-dimensional performance by Woody Harrelson. It’s a sad indictment of the film when CGI characters are significantly more real than real characters. Motivation for the human’s cruelty towards the apes is thin, although I understand that they’re angry about the virus that is spreading and taking away their voices. The escape of the apes from the compound where they are imprisoned conveniently coincides with the attack by another lot of humans against the rebel Colonel. Then even more conveniently, a freak natural event wipes both parties out leaving the apes free to be led to the promised land by a Moses-like Caesar. Heavy-handed Old Testament symbolism. I thought this year couldn’t get any worse than the new (2017) Pirates of the Caribbean and Transformers films. But apparently it can. I don’t want to post this on Facebook because everyone else seems to think this is a good film. I’ll leave my comments here.
