War for the Planet of the Apes

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (Matt Reeves, 2017)

At one point as a kid I wondered what it would be like in movies or after-school cartoons if the bad guys won for a change. After all, no matter how things appeared to be going in these shows and films, everything predictably worked out in the end. I suspect that this fleeting thought from my childhood was common among those of the same age who were becoming bored with the formula. Now that my generation has a lot of sway in what gets made, it seems that we’re getting the chance to discover what it feels like when the course reverses and good doesn’t triumph or its victories in mass entertainment are pyrrhic. Think of all the remakes and franchise reboots in the last decade or so whose differentiating quality is that they are now dark, gritty, or edgy. The new normal is an overwhelming sense of gloom and doom, in part because it is considered more artistically serious. While any framework will yield worthwhile and lousy results, this worldview in event films has become exhausting.

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES picks up two years into the combat between humans and the apes. Having toppled Koba in the previous film, Caesar (Andy Serkis) leads his kind, making him the top priority for The Colonel (Woody Harrelson) to find and eliminate. Caesar wishes for the fighting to stop, so when the apes capture some of the enemy, he sends them back as a gesture meant to broker a detente. Instead the intel of where Caesar is invites a slaughter of many he’s been trying to protect.

Caesar sends most of the survivors toward a new home while he intends to exact revenge on the Colonel. Rocket (Terry Notary), Winter (Aleks Paunovic), and Spear (Alessandro Juliani) refuse to let him go alone. On their search they take pity on and add to their group a mute girl given the name Nova (Amiah Miller). They also come across former zoo animal Bad Ape (Steve Zahn), who knows where the Colonel and his men are stationed and agrees to show them.

Beginning with 2011’s RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, the rebooted series has always had dark clouds looming over it because the original films provide the roadmap for where the new ones will arrive. They’ve become progressively darker and now reach the exceedingly grim WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES. What gets depicted is restrained enough to stay within the confines of a box office-maximizing PG-13 rating, but what happens is pretty horrific regardless of which side comes out on top. Tragedy builds upon tragedy to the point that by the time this aggressively feel-bad film concludes I left the theater hoping the sun hadn’t been extinguished in the interim. WONDER WOMAN features its share of darkness, but at the core it prizes earnestness, decency, and love over fear, nihilism and hatred. It’s unfair to WAR OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, but I’m seeking more of what WONDER WOMAN is promoting at this point in time.

Perhaps I was just in the wrong mood when I saw WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES. It’s a marvelous technical achievement that the number and variety of simians are so convincing that it’s taken for granted that they are real. Although Zahn’s Bad Ape probably belongs in a more lighthearted film, the provides comic relief and a much-needed glimmer of fun. Director and co-writer Matt Reeves lingers on the breathtaking scope of the landscapes being traversed and occupied. The action scenes are brutally effective. The film’s allegory about humanity’s penchant for mutually assured destruction hits hard in the context of the daily news. But WAR OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is such an oppressive film to watch. Plus, there’s the sneaking suspicion that its purpose is just to advance the series to where we knew it was eventually headed.

Grade: C+

Strange Wilderness

STRANGE WILDERNESS (Fred Wolf, 2008)

Films by Adam Sandler's Happy Madison production company have a shambling, improvised quality about them. Sandler comes across as a regular guy making movies with his friends and for them (and those with similar senses of humor). STRANGE WILDERNESS, the latest release under the Happy Madison shingle, also possesses the shaggy vibe of buddies getting together with a movie camera and several kegs and goofing around until they have a finished product.

The two main characters in STRANGE WILDERNESS are named after the co-screenwriters, one of whom sits in the director's chair as well. The loose familiarity comes through loud and clear in the final shot. The actors break character and bust out laughing as though they can't believe their luck to be having so much fun making a film. Their good time doesn't include those paying to watch the half-assed effort they cobble together, though.

Following in the footsteps of his father, Peter Gaulke (Steve Zahn) hosts the wildlife TV show Strange Wilderness. Peter and his dimwitted pals, including sound man Fred Wolf (Allen Covert), assemble scientifically dubious programs banished to the 3 a.m. broadcast wasteland. Questionable content--topless blondes from Long Beach standing in for African natives, an alligator mauling a man--and declining ratings force station manager Ed Lawson (Jeff Garlin) to pull the plug.

The Strange Wilderness team needs a miracle to get back on the air. Old friend Bill Calhoun (Joe Don Baker) may be the desperate, paranoid angel who can provide one. He has photographs of Bigfoot in Ecuador and a map to the creature's habitat that can be purchased for the low, low price of one thousand dollars. If Peter can't pony up the money, Bill will sell to Sky Pierson (Harry Hamlin), a rival nature show host with a bigger budget.

Hoping to shoot several episodes on the way, everyone piles into the motor home for the trip south. Along for the ride is travel agent Cheryl (Ashley Scott), who is there for no other reason than the film needing a female.

Instantly forgettable and proudly lazy, STRANGE WILDERNESS feels like it's being made up on the spot. Internal story consistency is not valued. Potential subplots that might have given shape to the film--an ANCHORMAN-like competitiveness between Peter and Sky's crews, for instance--are scrapped for stoner humor in short attention span chunks. It's the sort of movie you can imagine a dorm rat finding hilarious when he's blotto and wondering what's so funny when he's straight.

Zahn makes a likable protagonist even if he struggles mightily to create laughter. Getting his penis gobbled by a turkey isn't as funny or outrageous as it sounds, but he and Covert have an amusing scene while waiting to see a dentist to fix their knocked out front teeth. STRANGE WILDERNESS does better with sight gags than one-liners. (Jonah Hill, reduced to a weird voice, whiffs on all the weak ones that come his way.) Eyes drawn on the eyelids, an old standby for the inappropriately dozing, are good for a few chuckles. The manner in which the guys try to make the best of their interaction with Bigfoot rounds up some stray laughs too.

Unlike some other Happy Madison productions, STRANGE WILDERNESS is oddly watchable despite how awful it might sound. The jokes are lightweight and inoffensive but connect infrequently enough to keep one awake. The cast, which includes Broken Lizard member Kevin Heffernan, Justin Long, Robert Patrick, and Ernest Borgnine, is up for anything but let down because of the material's flimsiness. There is no evidence of anyone breaking a sweat to make this movie. But hey, whatever, man.

Grade: C-