Because Everybody Else Has One

A bit of an odd pairing this but bear with me... Despite their pronounced war aspects, Dunkirk and War for the Planet of the Apes are two rather different films. One is a fantasy that makes heavy use of metaphor to talk about real-world issues, while one is an on-the-ground look at a real military event of some 300 000 Allied Soldiers being evacuated from German-occupied Belgium. One is actually a war movie with its emphasis firmly on military battles; one just uses its war trappings as the dressing on what is basically a near-Biblical fable. One centres on the trials and travails of ordinary young men during a horrific historical incident; one features talking apes in a rather (one hopes) unlikely future. These are not the same film by any stretch of the imagination and, yet, as I slouched out of Dunkirk in a state of abject disappointment, all I could do was think back to the latest - and best - Planet of the Apes movie. Both films, you see, are staggering technical achiev...

After two pretty miserable weeks, this blockuster season bounces back with one of its best entries yet. Silencing most of even its most most doubtful skeptics, 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes successfully resurrected a franchise that looked more than a little dead. The previous attempt to bring the Apes franchise into the 21st century - Tim Burton's misjudged "reimagining" of the classic '60s science fiction film that started it all - crashed and burned, but it was apparently harder to kill a killer high concept than most assumed. Rise raked it up at the box office and garnered largely very positive reviews and was generally received about as well this kind of prequel/ reboot could ever hope to be. And, despite a few small flaws (James Franco's an engaging and likable leading man but an unconvincing scientist) Rise of the Planet of the Apes easily earned its warm reception. What was less clear, however, was whether it was truly a new beginning for...