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Three-Sentence Movie Review
My middle son, in the still-dark theater as the credits rolled after two hours and twenty minutes of War of 
the Planet of the Apes:
Wow. It’s like a group of screenwriters made a really stupid bet. “Who can write a movie that will make an audience boo humans and cheer monkeys?”
See? I’m not the only curmudgeon in the family.
Published in General
That sounds like a great bet to me and a really interesting writing challenge.
The mainstream media has been doing this for years.
Your son is very perceptive.
Re: who would make such a stupid bet–probably the same folks who bet, about 25 years ago that they could write a screenplay that would have the audience cheering the cannibal at the end.
People are odd.
The monkey looks like he was just told.
I booed the whole movie. I saw it at work, and it’s one of those films that only works with Stupid Movie Logic™.
Some spoilers follow, but the movie is so insulting to one’s intelligence that it really shouldn’t bother anyone.
Soldiers are sneaking up on the ape hideout in a forest which is on a hilltop? What a shock they get massacred. This is how people attack them? There isn’t one human alive who can fly a plane to Agent Orange the forest these monkeys are living in once and for all? Really? (And yes, we see that Apache helicopters and targeted missile systems still exist – but no one thinks of using them on their simian enemy.)
And so many times any logical person would have put a bullet right in Monkey Spartacus’ brain and be done with him: Over and over, they keep letting him live. Why? Because if they don’t, BOOM – movie’s over. The only way to sustain the story is to have people keep making the same glaringly obvious stupid decision. And even at the end, Monkey Spartacus waits until they cross, like, six states before mentioning that he has an arrow lodged in his lung? Maybe if he’d said something back in, I dunno, Nevada, he’d still be alive. But then he wouldn’t become Monkey Jesus! So dumb. So, so dumb.
I imagine the writers’ room looked something like this:
The first time I saw the trailer for the movie, I guessed that would end up being the spin. Just the latest example of leftist oikophobia / xenophila.
But hey, it sells tickets and wins awards. See “Dances With Wolves” and “Avatar” (AKA “Dances With Space Wolves”).
They manage to add a subtle but nevertheless prominent aspect of Christianity-bashing to the whole proceeding in War for the Planet of the Apes, as well.
Did they edit in any references to Trump?
Glenn Beck this morning said this movie was about Moses and the Exodus.
They succeeded in doing that in Avatar except the monkeys were blue.
Having seen the original series of movies I could never get past the first movies basic logic of apes in the city.
Given there is what 20000 gorillas on the entire planet, how are these Apes going to wipe out humanity?!
Watch the original Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Now that is amazing.
I was cheering for the space marines in Avatar–I don’t know what movie you saw. Those blue dudes were blocking mineral rights obtained through properly negotiated contract. Plus they were space marines in mech suits firing Gatling guns. Reread the last sentence and tell me you are not supposed to cheer for that.
Part of Hollywood’s agenda of giving Humanity to animals and robots while denying it to human fetuses.
Or he could have been commenting on a DNC convention.
You make being a curmudgeon sound like a bad thing . . .
Peter,
Your son is no curmudgeon. He is hitting on a reality that we have been facing for a long time. In the last 30-40 years, the old Hollywood which still had some core ethical values is completely gone. We are faced with the most sophisticated both artistically and financially movie makers who have no foundational core ethical values. In fact, some of these movie makers are so completely sure of a radical critique of Western values that every project is just a vehicle to promote that radical view. Your son naively and refreshingly so saw the King with no clothes on for what he was. The message of this elaborate and expensive movie is idiotic and no it isn’t appropriate to withhold judgment because it’s a work of art.
Your son hit the nail right on the head. Good for him.
Regards,
Jim
Saw it. Didn’t think much of it.
Is it possible to watch a movie without politics intruding on the experience?
Oh I was definitely for the marines, but for some reason everyone else in the theater wasn’t.
Yes, but it requires a lot more than just suspension of disbelief.
I’ll really worry if they get the audience to cheer the Aliens in the next sequel.
I remember having an argument with my sister after we saw what was then the “new” King Kong (the one with Richard Dreyfus). She was weeping furious tears at what she saw as the unjust death of Kong. I pointed out that he had already killed people, he was a menace and of course they had to kill him.
Interesting, now that I think of it. She’s an environmentalist and I’m a chaplain with a cop fetish…hmmmmn.
Oh, Jamie. I’m horrible to go to the movies with. I critique everything—the historical anachronisms, the failure to get even the most elementary details of police procedures and tactics right, and —worst!—I remind everyone that the chances are good there will be only two significant females in the movie. One will be the “mom” and the other will be the “reproductive opportunity.”
“Count ’em,” I say, and my poor children, to this day, involuntarily do so. I’ve ruined so many cinema experiences for my loved ones… I fully expect this to be the sticking point St. Peter cites when I arrive at the Pearly Gates.
Just remember Shakespeare always got those details wrong. All those cannons being used in King John.
Msk,
You’ve hit on something significant. Once you accept the premise that time honored Western values are the problem, not the solution, then anything is possible. When Marxists incite race conflict, animosity between the sexes, and violence this is what is in their head. They assume that once they’ve caused enough chaos then the old order will fall and their wonderful new system will prevail. Of course, the truth is that everything good in life was created by those Western values and the moment that Marxism actually takes over is the moment all hell breaks loose and the mass murder begins.
Regards,
Jim
I ❤️Human beings!
And I hated Avatar. About halfway through I realized it wouldn’t have made any difference if the sound were turned off. Although I’m glad it wasn’t, cuz I almost died laughing when they came out with “unobtanium”. Coulda called it “hardtogetite”! Buncha hermaphroditey lookin’ wimps.
Lets see a more historically based movie where the ancestors of us “killer apes ” ( actually they all are killers…) eliminate and /or subjugate the hairier simians.
I read the original book years bofore they made the first movie. It didn’t happen on earth. That was a new ending developed for the movie. I never bought into the premise of apes taking over for man and man devolving into ape-like behavior, with loin cloths. Dumb!
These movies are diversions, escapes from ordinary reality. Pretending they are something more is ridiculous. You take horror/zombie movies seriously? You watch them, you enjoy them, you go home, and you’ve had a couple of hours during which you didn’t have to think about Trump or the Democrats or Obamacare or taxes. If you make anything more out of the experience it isn’t the producers’ problem, it’s your’s.
Watch Mark Steyn’s latest video about the demographics of Europe (and Japan).
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St0CTQScIxA)
The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden, and Scotland are all led by childless leaders…
About halfway through I expected there to be an intermission where they would run old John Kerry For President commercials and a message from James Cameron scolding the audience for voting Republican.
I refuse to root for monkeys.
I also refuse to root for the Germans or the Japanese in WWII movies. Or books. When Clint Eastwood’s movie paean to the Imperial Japanese Army “Letters from Iwo Jima” aired, I was happy when each and every Jap soldier was killed.
There are some things I just won’t do. I’ll root for me and my country, or species, against our enemies every time. That’s because I’m not confused as to who and what I am, and why being an American (or a human) is best.
My daughter and I watched the preview for that movie. We agreed we wouldn’t go to see it.