Side note, but did anyone else see that new guillermo del toro movie trailer before this? I think it was called The Shape of Water. Its apparently not online, really wanted to watch it again. Looked incredible. Its a shame the theater audience I was with was miserable, people laughing and making fun of the trailer.
Ya, it looked interesting, but was a little too similar to Bioshock in style, elements, and era. And I also did not enjoy Pan's Labyrinth, so I won't be seeing this in the theater.
As for War, I saw it yesterday and enjoyed it greatly. I think I like Dawn a little more because it had more subplots and themes going on at the same time than War did. But the arc for Ceasar is great. Bad Ape was great too, and was probably the best 'comic relief'-type character I have seen in a long time that was not groan inducing.
There were a few things which annoyed me, like:
1. I wish they showed or said something or ANYTHING, of what was happening anywhere else in the world, much less anything that is not southwest America. The microcosm and storytelling is too small for such epic, historic, and powerful changes to species. This is more a complaint to both Dawn and War in general, but not as much so to Rise, since it had that great ending sequence and news snippets that I loved, which showed the world in chaos from the virus. Even one or two lines on the situation in War outside their little bubble would have made me happy.
2. That of all the human soldiers in the camp, it only had 2 characters- the 1-dimensional soldier that Ceasar lets go in the beginning and gets blown up at end; and the leader Woody, whose acting was just okay, as always. Everyone else was one brainwashed hivemind, no character at all. Weak storytelling.
3. Dumb things in the story during the prison section, like:
-how useless the whole water pouring into the tunnel part was,
-how fake and contrived that the girl was able to just waltz in and out of the camp without any soldiers seeing. Why would the apes build such high walls if the front door is wide open and the soldiers so stupid? lol
I know there are more things, but I can't remember now.
All in all, this trilogy is great. When I was a kid, i was not a fan of the old movie or TV series, because the masks looked ugly and it looked depressing to me. But after seeing Rise and enjoying it, I bought the original 5 on the Bluray set, and actually really liked all of them. Then I saw the Burton remake, and of course that was hot shitpile. That was my leadup to watching and loving Dawn in the theater, and now War.
