Seven years later, as the first "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" movie after Disney's acquisition of the twentieth century, it is bound to cause concern among many fans. But after watching it, you can rest assured that "Rise of the Planet of the Apes: New World" has successfully opened a new era and chapter with a steady pace and a trace of ambition to expand the world, and also inherits the legend of Caesar.
Stills from "Rise of the Planet of the Apes: New World".
Rise of the Planet of the Apes: New World takes place 300 years after Caesar's fall, and apes have replaced humans as the wisest masters of the earth. The film continues to use Caesar's famous phrase "unity and strength is great" as the core of the plot, and the new king tries to rule the ape people in the name of Caesar, but does everything he can to act as a tyrant against Caesar's original intentions. This work is attached to the philosophical core of the "Planet of the Apes" series to reflect on the contradictions between orangutans and human society, and "great strength of unity" is a disobedient theory that will only be reminded on the battlefield after all, and it is a truth that we can't learn after all.
As the first "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" produced by Disney, the plot has indeed become a bit of a Disney-style routine, starting with an adventure of breaking taboos and pursuing oneself. Most of the time, the proportion of "literary drama" is more than the "fighting scene" on the conflict, and it is more like a road movie than a war movie. The plot effects and jokes of some episodes inevitably become a bit child's play, but it still does not affect the overall rhythm.
Stills from "Rise of the Planet of the Apes: New World".
There are not many human characters in the film, and most of the time it is still dominated by conflicts between orangutans. This makes the appearance of the few human characters in the film seem functional, and to some extent become a hindrance to the plot. The only human heroine, Maye (originally called Nova by the apes), has a mysterious stance, and I think Freya Allen's performance is great, but unfortunately there are not many opportunities to explore the question of "whether humans and apes can coexist" in the film, and it also leaves the actors without much room for expression.
The Rise of the Planet of the Apes series has been careful to explore the progress of Caesar and the apes in learning human language, but fortunately, Rise of the Planet of the Apes: New World still captures this key, and the orangutans are able to communicate in simple English while still maintaining the body language and instinctive reactions that an orangutan should have. (Andy Serkis didn't continue this time, but every motion capture performance in this film is amazing) Disney did not unconditionally portray them as anthropomorphic animals like CGI's "The Lion King", but showed a real evolution that gradually surpassed humans over hundreds of years.
Stills from "Rise of the Planet of the Apes: New World".
The new version of the film is helmed by Wes Ball, the director of "Moving Labyrinth", whose familiarity with the fictional worldview is evident in the design of every scene of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes: New World". While this is ultimately a work of the VFX department, you can see how Wes Ball and his team meticulously designed this post-apocalyptic city covered in vines.
Overall, it's not the best in the Planet of the Apes series, and it wants to explore a bit too much, which in some ways slows down the pace and focus of the story. But it does what Disney's version of Star Wars 7 can't: it doesn't try to replicate or simply sell off the canon of its predecessor, but instead takes a fresh perspective as a starting point, honoring the Caesar saga while continuing the epic story.