Legends Of Tomorrow Season 3, Episode 1: Aruba-Con

I'm way, way behind on reviews this week, so bear with me as I try to catch up!

It's the Season 3 premiere of Legends Of Tomorrow!

If you're a regular viewer of the show, you'll remember that Season 1 was pretty dire. The sole Big Bad for the entire season was the lame and uninteresting Vandal Savage, played by the horribly miscast Casper Crump. Since Savage was the only villain, that meant the Legends couldn't defeat him until the season finale, else the series would be over. That led to an entire season of wheel spinning and dull stories.

Fortunately the producers seemed to learn from their mistakes, and Season 2 of the show was a VAST improvement. Legends quickly became my favorite show, as it gleefully embraced its goofy Silver Age comic book roots, and all the insanity that implies. Hopefully Season 3 will give us more of the same.

Unfortunately this Season 3 premiere got off to a bit of a rocky start though. Last season ended with a cliffhanger, in which the Legends discovered they'd "broken time," as modern day LA was overrun with dinosaurs and other temporal anomalies. Based on this compelling setup, most fans, including myself, assumed that the Legends having to "fix time" would be the theme of Season 3.

Nope! Apparently the writers changed their minds, because this cliffhanger was resolved in the quickest and most off-handed way humanly possible. It's like they couldn't wait to torpedo this storyline and get on with a different one.

Oddly enough, the exact same thing happened on Legend's sister show The Flash, as the writer's there unceremoniously resolved their cliffhanger in a similarly disinterested way.

The Legends now have to deal with former captain Rip Hunter and his brand new Time Bureau. The Bureau is a thinly disguised Men In Black, right down to their 1960s suits, high tech weaponry and handheld memory erasers. It's actually shocking how deliberately the show's copied the MIB franchise, and I'm not quite sure how they're getting away with it.

The show's never quite known what to do with the Rip character, so who knows, maybe this new role will finally give him a purpose.

Now the bad news. The day after this episode aired, the Hollywood Reporter announced that actor Victor Garber, who plays Professor Stein on Legends, is leaving the show sometime this season. Garber's exiting to star in a Broadway production of Hello Dolly! with Bernadette Peters.

Goddammit! This is a kick in the gut indeed, as Garber is undoubtedly the best actor on the show, and his Professor Stein character is one of the main highlights of the series. Jesus, Legends usually has truncated seasons that are sixteen or seventeen episodes long. Couldn't Garber tread the boards in his off-time from the show?

This means that once again we'll be getting a new half of Firestorm. Robbie Amell was one half of the original due before deciding he'd rather be making quality theatrical films like The Duff and Max. Now they're gonna have to replace Garber as well, which is gonna be damned near impossible. Feh!

SPOILERS!

The Plot:

We pick up right where we left off in the Season 2 cliffhanger. The Legends were headed for Aruba when the Waverider was caught in a "time storm" and crash-landed in present day L.A. As a result of their actions, time is now "broken" and they find themselves in a city where dinosaurs roam the streets and spaceships fill the sky.

As the Legends look around the city in astonishment, a T-Rex runs right toward them. Suddenly Rip Hunter, dressed in a snappy Men In Black suit, appears out of nowhere and opens a time portal. The dinosaur runs safely through it, back to its own era. All around the city, similarly dressed agents use portals to clean up the time aberrations in minutes. Well, that was certainly easy!

Rip explains that since he left the ship in last season's finale (which was about fifteen minutes ago from the Legends' point of view), he's been busy founding the Time Bureau, a highly advanced organization that protects the time stream. He confiscates the Waverider and tells the Legends their services are no longer needed and are free to go.

Six months pass. White Canary's now working at Sinks, Showers And Stuff (I guess the assassin business must be slow?), where she's yelled at by a way too serious boss. Atom works at a Silicon Valley startup company called UpSwipes, which is a slight variation on Tinder. He tells his boss— who's a good fifteen years younger than him— about his shrinking tech, but he's too occupied with making the next big app to listen. Steel is in Central City for some reason, fighting crime with Kid Flash. He's upset because his gal pal Vixen decided to return home to 1942 after all.

Heat Wave of course is relaxing on a beach in Aruba. He's approached by the real Julius Caesar, who apparently slipped past the notice of the Time Bureau. Heat Wave calls Canary and says he's got a time aberration on his hands. She tells him not to let Caesar out of his sight, and quits her dead-end job. She meets with Atom and Steel and they all decide to help Heat Wave in Aruba. But first they're gonna need their old ride back.

In Aruba, Heat Wave's tied up Caesar and is holding him captive in his hut. Caesar breaks loose, dropping a leather pouch full of gold coins (Plot Point!). He escapes and runs onto the beach, right into a Spring Break party full of toga-clad college students.

Canary, Atom and Steel travel to Star City, where they sneak into Time Bureau HQ, where they're immediately surrounded by security. Canary demands to see Rip, and tells him that Heat Wave captured Caesar in Aruba, and they need their ship. Rip takes them to a vast hangar, where they see the Waverider's been decommissioned and is now used a training simulator for new Time Bureau recruits.

The Legends finally convince Rip to at least check out Heat Wave's claim, so he opens a portal to Aruba. They go through, and see Heat Wave fighting with Caesar. Rip summons his agents, who take Heat Wave and Caesar back to the Time Bureau. Once there, they discover it's not Caesar at all, but a drunken frat boy in a toga. An angry Rip kicks the Legends out of the building.

On the way out, Heat Wave tries to buy a coke with a gold coin. Steel recognizes it as currency from Caesar's era, and they realize Heat Wave was telling the truth (told you it was a Plot Point!). They decide to capture him themselves, to prove to Rip they're still a viable team. They sneak into the hangar, throw the students out of the Waverider and fly it out of the building.

Cut to Professor Stein's house, where we see his time aberration daughter Lilly is now pregnant. Jackson shows up for their weekly Firestorm "bonding session," so they don't blow up. He says he's dropped out of school because it's boring after saving the world so many times. Just then the Waverider appears and lands in Stein's front yard. Canary says they're getting the band back together. Jackson's all for it, but Stein's reluctant to leave his family again. Jackson talks him into it and boards the ship.

The Waverider lands in Aruba, where Caesar's trying to recruit a bunch of drunken frat boys to join his army. Canary fights Caesar and eventually knocks him out. Rip then contacts the Legends, congratulating them on capturing Caesar (I guess he was monitoring them through the Waverider?). He orders them to return to the Time Bureau so he can put Caesar back where he belongs. The others want to finish the mission themselves, but tell Canary (their captain) they'll go along with whatever she decides. She thinks for a moment and orders Gideon to Ancient Rome. Woohoo!

Canary and Steel— who's carrying a Roman history book for no apparent reason— walk Caesar to the edge of his camp. They zap his memory with a Men In Black gizmo they stole from the Time Bureau, and send him on his way. They return to the ship, and Canary orders Gideon to take them home. She says she can't, as there's no home to go to. According to her database, North America is now called "Magna Hesperia."

Steel, who's apparently the most unobservant person on Earth, realizes that Caesar must have stolen the large, heavy history book he was carrying without him noticing. Caesar now has knowledge of what's to come and changed the future (even though the Waverider's still sitting there in 49 AD).

Rip and a team of Time Agents create a portal and enter the Waverider. Rip tells the Legends to sit quietly and not screw up any more history, thanks. His Time Agents move out to retrieve the history book, but they're easily captured by Caesar and his Centurions. Canary tells Rip that they can help, and he reluctantly lets them try.

There's a big battle between Caesar's men and the Legends. The Legends eventually rescue the Agents, destroy the book, wipe everyone's memories and restore history. For no reason other than because the script says so, Rip decides to let the Legends keep the Waverider, and tells them to try and stay out of trouble.

After Rip leaves, Heat Wave reveals he stole one of the Time Agent's portal openers. Stein decides to stay with the team a while longer. Atom sees Steel looking wistfully at photos of Vixen.

Cut to 1942, as a group of Belgian soldiers approach Vixen's village in Zambesi. They ominously say they have business here, and she tells them they should leave, as the village is under her protection. When they refuse, she summons several spirit animals who attack and kill the soldiers (!), which is a definite upgrade to her powers.

Thoughts:

• There's no opening narration this week, which is something the show's done since day one. I've always liked the narrations, and the fact that each of the cast members gets their own version, so I hope they start using them again soon.

• After exiting a time storm, the Waverider smashes through several buildings and crash-lands in present day LA. The Legends then see that their time travel shenanigans have broken time, as the past, present and future have seemingly merged. Dinosaurs roam the streets, as ancient buildings stand next to futuristic skyscrapers.

Luckily for the residents of LA, Rip Hunter and the Time Bureau appear. Within seconds, they send all the time aberrations back to their appropriate periods, and restore the city to normal.

Hmm. When the Waverider first appeared, it plowed right through the center of a downtown LA high-rise. I wonder... did the Time Bureau fix THAT too? Did they somehow restore the dozens of floors wiped out by the ship, as well as resurrecting the hundreds, if not thousands of people who were killed in the crash?

• Rip says he's spent the past five years forming the Time Bureau, a massive, top secret FBI-type organization, complete with its own weapons, technology and bureaucracy.

At first I scoffed at the idea that one man could do all that in just five years. But the more I thought about it, I realized it wouldn't be impossible for a time traveler.

The first thing Rip would need is money, and lots of it. That'd be no problem for a time traveler, as he could use his knowledge of the future to play the stock market and easily amass a vast fortune. He'd also be able to use time travel to outfit his agents with advanced technology that hasn't yet been invented. So it's not as far-fetched as it first seems.

• Nice attention to detail: When Heat Wave's sunning himself, we see his arms are covered in burn scars. Makes perfect sense for someone who's a pyromaniac.

We first saw his scars back in the Season 1 episode Fail-Safe, in which he and Atom were tortured by Russian agents. Good to see someone on the crew (probably Dominic Purcell himself!) remembered this little detail about Heat Wave. 

Oddly enough, the scars he has in Fail-Safe seem to be much worse than the ones here! Maybe Gideon partially healed them last season while we weren't watching?

• Was there any reason for Steel to be hanging out and fighting crime in Central City, other than to give Wally West, aka Kid Flash, a cameo?

• When Caesar appears in 2017, he can inexplicably understand everything Heat Wave says, and vice versa. According to Rip, this is a side effect of time travel, called "Temporal Linguistic Dysplasia." It allows anyone from any time period to comprehend any language. Well that's certainly convenient!

This is similar to the translation explanation over on Doctor Who. Supposedly the Doctor's TARDIS features a "translation circuit," which is a telepathic field that enters a passenger's brain and allows them to instantly understand anyone from any time period.

• As Caesar approaches Heat Wave, we see he's wearing a typical Roman helmet. Unfortunately whenever he speaks, the helmet's cheek guards flap back and forth in front of his mouth. It's pretty funny once you notice it! Hopefully real Roman helmets didn't flop around like that, else the Britains would have fallen off their horses laughing.

• Caesar escapes from Heat Wave and runs into Aruba-Con, a Roman-themed beach party filled with drunken frat boys dressed in togas. It's called Aruba-Con because they're in Aruba, and also because in 49 BC, Caesar crossed the Rubicon river. Get it? Rubicon, Aruba-Con? Eh? Get it?

• Rip asks Agent Sharpe if she knows where Heat Wave is located in Aruba. Sharpe says, "Mm, we followed a trail of petty larceny reports. He's been holed up on the beach, running up a room service tab and a serious collection of STDs."

Ew! I could happily live out the rest of my life without ever having to hear about Heat Wave's STDs again!

• The Time Bureau is filled with dozens of transparent monitors depicting the various aberrations caused by the Legends. Those screens look pretty cool. I wonder— are they real, or CGI? If it's a special effect, it's a very well done one. Not only can you see through the screens a bit, but you can see the reflections of the Agents' heads in them. And a soft blue glow from the screens on their faces!

• Inside the Time Bureau, Rip takes a break from screaming at the Legends to zap King Arthur with a high tech memory eraser before sending him home. A couple things here:

First of all, this is the same King Arthur (played by actor Nils Hognestad) we saw last season in Camelot 3000. 

Secondly, man, they're not even attempting to hide the fact that the Time Bureau is lifted straight from the Men In Black franchise. Not only do the Time Agents look like the Men In Black, they've got the exact same technology as well!

Is that legal? Aren't there copyright laws in place to prevent one show from shamelessly copying another? Apparently not, since over on Fox The Orville's currently lifting practically every element from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I have a feeling Sony (who owns Men In Black) may be sending a cease and desist letter to Warner Bros. (owners of the Arrowverse) in the near future.

• Something to think about: Somehow this vast space...

And this one...

As well as this...

All somehow fit inside a ship of this shape and size. There's also a brig, a medbay, a mess hall, individual crew quarters, an engine room, a cargo hold and a small hangar with at least one shuttle inside.

I would dearly love to see a blueprint of the inside of this ship! I still say the Waverider's like the Doctor's TARDIS, and is bigger on the inside. It's the only explanation that makes sense.

• Of course it makes sense that a conquerer like Julius Caesar would be a "manspreader."

Ye gods, how I hate that word. That and "mansplaining."

• There's some wonky time travel (is there any other kind?) going on near the end of the episode. The Legends take Caesar back to 49 BC, and order Gideon to take them home. She says she can't, as Caesar secretly stole Steel's history book and changed the future. Wha...?

I don't have a problem with the concept of Caesar using knowledge of history to alter the future. Makes perfect sense. But how could the future change the instant they leave him? He's only been back in 49 BC for thirty seconds. He hasn't had time to do any changing yet! 

I could understand it if they returned to 2017 and found it drastically altered by Caesar's actions. But it makes zero sense for the future to change before he has a chance to modify it!

You could also argue that if Caesar's altered the future so radically, then the Legends would likely have never been born. I guess you could say that the Waverider protects them from changes to the time stream or something.

By the way, after Caesar alters the future, the U.S. is now known as "Magna Hesperia." According to the inter webs, that means "The Great West."

• At one point the Legends team up with the Time Bureau to retrieve Steel's history book and prevent Caesar from changing the future. During the battle, there's a reeeeally cool stunt in which Canary literally runs across the shields of several Roman Centurions. 

I suspect Canary, aka Caity Lots, was on some kind of wire rig here. Even so, it was still pretty impressive. I bet they went through a ton of takes to get it right!

• Apparently Vixen's powers have changed drastically since we last saw her. Last season she'd touch the amulet around her neck to summon the power of various animals. For example, a glowing blue image of an elephant would briefly appear around her, and she'd then have the proportionate strength of one. She could only invoke the powers of one animal at a time.

In this episode she activates her amulet and huge waves of energy flow out of her body...

Which then form into four or five different INDEPENDENT glowing animals. These ghostly beasts are apparently solid, as they attack and kill the soldiers who threatened her.

That's a hell of an upgrade! Vixen's supposed to return to the crew full time, so I'm assuming we'll eventually get the whole story and find out what the heck happened to her.

• When we first catch up with the Legends, Jackson's anxious to rejoin the team, while Professor Stein would rather spend time at home with his family. At the end of the episode, Professor Stein agrees to return to the Legends for the sake of his pal Jackson.

This was a nice little moment, since if you'll recall, Stein practically kidnapped Jackson and forced him to join the Legends way back in the first episode. It was good to see Stein acknowledge that mistake and try to make up for it.

On the other hand, it didn't take much arm-twisting to get Stein to join the old gang again. I'm starting to get the feeling he doesn't like spending time with his real family as much as he claims he does!

• I'm still not sure why Rip let the Legends keep the Waverider, especially after he spent the entire episode being a dick and telling them all what screw ups they are. The writers try to smooth this over by having Rip say he senses they have a destiny or role to play in coming events or something. Nice try, guys, but I don't buy it. His sudden turn was clunky and unbelievable.

• As the Legends depart, Heat Wave secretly steals Rip's "Time Courier" (his wrist-mounted time portal opener). A few seconds later Rip realizes it's gone and nonchalantly says, "Hmm... I must have misplaced it." He then asks Agent Sharpe to open a portal back to the Time Bureau. 

Rip can't possibly be stupid enough to not realize what happened. I'm assuming he knows the Legends have it, and it's all part of some plan, otherwise he'd be appearing on the Waverider and demanding they give it back. 

• At the end of the episode, Rip hints at this season's big bad:

Agent Sharpe: "They are irresponsible, undependable, unpredictable, dangerous."
Rip: "And yet effective. At least on occasion."
Sharpe: "Is that the reason they're not warming a cell back at headquarters as we speak?"
Rip: "They're not warming a cell, Agent Sharpe, because they might just be our best hope of defeating what's coming."
Sharpe: "They are the reason Mallus is a threat."
Rip: "Indeed. But there might just come a day when we need the Legends to do what they do best."

So, who the heck is Mallus? I have no idea. I searched the internet, and there doesn't appear to be any character with that name in any DC comic.

Since this is Legends Of Tomorrow, it's a safe bet to assume Mallus will have something to do with time travel. In this episode we just happen to find out that Professor Stein's time aberration daughter Lily is pregnant. I'm calling it right now— Lily's unborn child will somehow turn out to be Mallus! Eh, maybe not. We'll see.

• This Week's Best Lines:
Heat Wave: (to Caesar) "Your salad sucks!"

Canary: (as the Legends steal the Waverider) "Gideon, engines to power, turbines to speed!"
(Apparently Canary's a fan of the 1966 Batman TV show. That's what the Dynamic Duo would shout as they powered up the Batmobile)

Steel: "The point is, sometimes we screw things up for the better."
Canary: "That's a good motto. We should use that."

Steel: "We know how to handle ourselves."
Rip: "Not against Julius Caesar, who has an entire legion at his command."
Steel: "We're pretty good at taking down legions."
(this is a reference to last season, when the Legends defeated the Legion Of Doom— all four members of it!)

Stein: (after the Legends fix the Caesar time aberration) "We came, we saw..."
Atom and Steel: "We kicked Caesar's ass!"
(yep, that's a Ghostbusters reference)

Agent Sharpe: "I've got to say, Ms. Lance, now that I've seen your team in action with my own eyes, you are even worse than I imagined."
Canary: "You're welcome. Well, like Nate said, sometimes we screw things up for the better."
Agent Sharpe: "I fail to see how that's true in this case."
Canary: "It's our new motto."

It Came From The Cineplex: War For The Planet Of The Apes

War For The Planet Of The Apes was written by Mark Bomback and Matt Reeves, and directed by Matt Reeves.

Bomback is a VERY mediocre screenwriter who can occasionally pump out a decent script when he has to. Sadly, this is not one of those times. He previously wrote The Night Caller, Godsend, Live Free Or Die Hard, Deception, Race To Witch Mountain, Unstoppable, Total Recall (2012), The Wolverine, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes and The Divergent Series: Insurgent.

Matt Reeves worked mostly in TV until his cinematic directorial break, Cloverfield. He also directed Let Me In (the American remake of Let The Right One In) and Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes.

Take Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, throw out everything that made it good and cross it with a Cliff Notes version of Apocalypse Now and you'll have a pretty good idea what this movie's like.

I thought Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (the first film in the trilogy) was just OK at best. I loved Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes though, as it was a quantum leap forward in terms of writing, characterization and quality (I even gave it a A grade!). It was almost like a Shakespearian tragedy— I found myself hoping the fragile ape/human alliance would work out, even though I knew it was doomed from the start. The movie asked hard questions about race, prejudice and trust, and didn't flinch at answering them. I eagerly looked forward to the third chapter.

Unfortunately War For The Planet Of The Apes is a huge step backwards. Somehow War took everything that made Dawn a smartly written film and completely dumbed it down. Gone are the deep, thoughtful questions on the nature of humanity, replaced with a cliched revenge plot pulled straight out of a comic book adaptation of Moby Dick. 

Characterization suffers here too. In Dawn, Caesar was a flawed, complex character who felt real, despite the fact that he was a talking ape. Here he's been reduced to a cartoon character who's as shallow as the pixels used to render his form. He's gone from a thoughtful leader who desperately tried to find a way for apes and humans to coexist, to a reckless vigilante whose obsession with vengeance outweighs the good of his people.

Worst of all is the ridiculous ending. Apparently the writers were unable to come up with a satisfactory way to wrap up the war between the species, so they literally wipe the humans off the screen with a comically contrived deus ex machina.

So what went wrong here? Why is War such a step downwards in quality? If I had to guess, I'd say the fault lies with the writing team— or rather the lack of it. Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver wrote Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, and co-wrote Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes along with Mark Bomback. For some reason they didn't return for this third installment. Apparently they were the real talents of the franchise, as their absence is keenly felt here.

So far the film's grossed $100 million domestically, and $77 million overseas, for a worldwide total of $177 million against its $150 million budget. That ain't good. Rise grossed $481 million (worldwide), while Dawn raked in an impressive $710 million (also worldwide). I don't know if it's just bad timing or people are tired of CGI apes, but War definitely has its work cut out for it if it wants to surpass (or even equal!) its predecessors.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
To recap: It's been fifteen years since the Simian Flu swept the world, killing billions of humans and smartening up the great apes (which we saw happen in Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes). Caesar the chimp (played by Andy Serkis), the leader of a large group of apes, struggled to live in peace with the remaining humans. Unfortunately a rogue bonobo named Koba (played by Toby Kebbell) betrayed Caesar, causing a war between the apes and humanity. Caesar broke the apes' cardinal rule and killed Koba, ending the conflict (as seen in Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes). He and his tribe now live deep in the Muir Woods, inside an abandoned human command base behind a waterfall. OK, we're all caught up!

As the apes mind their own business, a team of soldiers quietly sneak through the woods and surround them. The humans are helped by a couple of turncoat apes (including a gorilla named Red) who were loyal to Koba. The soldiers attack the ape base, but Caesar's tribe savagely strikes back with spears and guns.

Caesar's forces several humans, including one named Preacher, who'll become important later on. They capture Red as well. Caesar sends the humans back to their camp unharmed, to show their commander the apes are peaceful. He holds onto the traitorous Red though, ordering an albino gorilla named Winter to lock him up. Unfortunately Red escapes from Winter and heads back to the human camp.

Just then Caesar's son Blue Eyes returns from a scouting mission, reuniting with his mate Lake. Blue Eyes tells him of a Hidden Valley he discovered, where the apes would be safe from humanity forever (?). It seems unlikely there'd be anyplace on Earth that humans wouldn't eventually find, but let's just go with it or we'll be here all day. Many of the apes are all for moving, but Caesar's reluctant to go. Instead he huddles with his wife Cornelia and youngest son Cornelius.

That night the ape camp is raided by another squad of human soldiers, led by Colonel McCullough (played by Woody Harrelson). Because that's what army Colonels do, right? They lead dangerous missions instead of controlling troop movements from a command bunker. The Colonel kills Blue Eyes and Cornelia, thinking he's slaying Caesar and his wife. Caesar wakes and finds his wife and son dead. He spots the The Colonel as he climbs up a rope beyond the waterfall. Enraged, Caesar leaps after him and follows up the rope. The Colonel cuts the rope, and Caesar falls into a pool far below.

Caesar returns to the cave and discovers his youngest son Cornelius is still alive. He asks Lake to watch over Cornelius, and then orders his people to head for the Hidden Valley immediately, while he goes off to seek revenge on The Colonel. Maurice the orangutan is shocked that Caesar isn't personally leading his people to their promised land.

Caesar rides off to the soldier's camp, which he somehow knows how to find, and is soon followed by Maurice, Rocket the chimp and Luca the gorilla. Caesar orders them away, saying this is something he has to do himself. They refuse to leave, insisting on protecting him. The apes soon come to a small human outpost. They're surprised to see Winter there, and discover he's defected after Red talked him into letting him go. Caesar interrogates Winter, who tells him The Colonel and his men are heading toward their larger border camp. Caesar knocks out Winter and leaves him unconscious.

The next day the apes find a cabin, where they surprise a human gathering wood. He tries to shoot them, but Caesar kills the man first. Inside the cabin they find a young human girl. She struggles to speak, but can't for some reason. Maurice gives her a doll to calm her down, and takes her with him. Caesar objects, but Maurice says he's not leaving her to die alone.

The apes enter a snowy, mountainous region, where they find the executed bodies of three of The Colonel's men. Miraculously, one's still alive, and Caesar attempts to question him. Unfortunately the man can't speak, just like the girl. Hmmm... Caesar kills the mortally wounded man, putting him out of his misery.

Just then a shadowy figure steals one of their rifles and horses. They chase after it, and corner it in an abandoned building. They see it's a small chimp who calls himself Bad Ape (played by Steve Zahn). He explains that he lived in a zoo, and after the Simian Flu elevated his intelligence, he learned to speak from watching and listening to humans. Bad Ape gives his jacket to the girl, along with a metallic car emblem that reads "NOVA." Fan service!

The next day Luca and Nova bond, until he's shot and killed by one of The Colonel's snipers. Caesar says this is why he wanted to come alone. Maurice tells Caesar his thirst for revenge is turning him into Koba.

That night Caesar heads for The Colonel's camp alone. Outside the camp he sees several familiar apes crucified on large wooden "X"s. Why, it's almost like The Colonel's trying to send a message, and the camp is a Forbidden Zone! More fan service! Caesar tries to free one of the apes, who tells him that shortly after he left, the apes were all ambushed and captured by The Colonel's men. Just then Caesar's knocked out by Red.

When Caesar wakes up he's taken to see The Colonel, and tells him he plans to kill him for murdering his wife and child. The Colonel apologizes, saying he actually meant to kill Caesar. He orders him to be put to work with the other captured apes, to build a giant wall around the camp. Caesar's relieved to see that Cornelius and Lake are still alive.

The humans force the apes to work endlessly on the wall for days, with no food or water. Caesar eventually tells them to stop until they're fed. This angers The Colonel, who orders Caesar to be whipped. Lake and the other apes start working again in order to save Caesar's life.

Later Red and Preacher bring Caesar to The Colonel's office. The Colonel tells him that the Simian Flu is starting to mutate, and it's causing the human survivors to lose their ability to speak and to regress to a primitive state (which explains why Nova can't talk). The Colonel says his own son was affected by this new strain, and he was forced to kill him, which obviously unhinged him. The Colonel claims the military's blind to what's happening, so he and a group of men deserted to form their own enclave. The wall is meant to protect them from the military that's coming to put an end to The Colonel's rogue faction.

The Colonel then agrees to feed and water the apes— except for Caesar. Meanwhile, Maurice, Rocket, Bad Ape and Nova observe the camp. Somehow Nova sashays into the camp unchallenged and unseen, giving Caesar food and water, and inexplicably, her doll. A group of soldiers approach, and Rocket distracts them so Nova can get away. He's captured and thrown in with the other apes. The Colonel sees the doll in Caesar's cage and realizes something's going on. For some reason he picks up the doll and takes it to his office.

Somehow Bad Ape knows there're a series of tunnels under the camp, and Maurice realizes they can use them to free their people. Bad Ape digs through the top of a tunnel, popping up inside the main ape cage. Rocket creates a diversion by throwing his feces at a human guard (!). This angers the guard so much he actually enters the cage and demands to know who threw their poop. He just happens to stop at the perfect spot so that Bad Ape can pull him underground.

The apes begin evacuating their young out of the camp, and Rocket manages to free Caesar. Rocket's stunned when Caesar tells him to go on without him, as he can't let go of his hatred of The Colonel and plans to finish him off. Some leader!

Just then the real military shows up and launches an all-out attack on The Colonel's crazy faction. Naturally the makeshift wooden wall is no match for missiles and other high tech weaponry, and is instantly breached. In the confusion Caesar enters The Colonel's office, and sees him lying in bed, seemingly drunk. He sees The Colonel's holding Nova's doll and realizes he's been struck dumb by the mutated flu as well. That was quick! Caesar hands The Colonel his gun, and he uses the last of his intelligence to shoot himself in the head.

Caesar's then caught between the two warring human armies. He's shot with an arrow by Preacher, the man he showed mercy to earlier. I'll bet there's a message there somewhere! Red, who's still working for the humans, sees Caesar fall. He decides to have a third act change of heart, and turns on his oppressors. Caesar grabs a grenade belt and throws it at a fuel truck, blowing up the entire camp. Caesar of course manages to escape somehow.

Caesar watches as the newly-arrived army cheers the destruction of The Colonel and his forces. Just then a couple of these new soldiers spot Caesar, and draw their guns on him. Before they can fire, a massive avalanche— triggered by the explosion— flows down the mountain.

Caesar and the other apes quickly climb to safety, as the deus ex machina, er, I mean the avalanche completely wipes out the human army. Well, that was certainly easy! No more messy truces or trying to get along with the humans!

The apes then head for the magical Hidden Valley, where no mean nasty humans will ever be able to find them. They finally arrive, and see the Valley is a virtual paradise, filled with abundant trees and flowing rivers. Caesar and Maurice watch with satisfaction as their people make themselves at home. Suddenly Caesar slumps over, as we see his wound was more serious than he let on. He asks Maurice to take care of Cornelius for him. Maurice says he'll make sure that his son, and all apes, will know what he did for them. Caesar then dies in peace.

Thoughts:
• Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes was absolutely lousy with Easter eggs, shoutouts and callbacks to the original Planet Of The Apes franchise. I counted at least twenty one such references in the film. One or two in-jokes would have been fine, but after a while this constant fan service became extremely distracting and downright annoying.

Thankfully, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes featured were few if any callbacks, and all was right with the world.

Annnnd now the references are back with a vengeance in War Of The Planet Of The Apes.

Many of the ape names are references to the original franchise. Caesar's son Blue Eyes is likely a nod to "Bright Eyes," the nickname given to Taylor by Dr. Zira in Planet Of The Apes. Caesar's youngest son is named Cornelius, which was the name of Roddy McDowell's character in Planet Of The Apes. Maurice the orangutan is a shoutout to actor Maurice Evans, who played Dr. Zauis in Planet Of The Apes. Caesar was of course the ape protagonist in Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes. (to be fair, these names were all established in Rise and Dawn, so I can't fault this film too awfully much for using them again. Still, a shoutout is a shoutout!).

The mute human girl found by Caesar and his peeps is nicknamed "Nova." Actress Linda Harrison played Nova, Taylor's mute human mate in Planet Of The Apes and Beneath The Planet Of The Apes.

The Colonel calls his rebel faction the Alpha & Omega. In Beneath The Planet Of The Apes, a group of underground mutated humans worshiped an atomic bomb that was called Alpha & Omega.

When Caesar first approaches The Colonel's base, he sees a group of apes crucified on large wooden "X"s. There were similar wooden crosses used to mark the edge of the Forbidden Zone in Planet Of The Apes.

After Caesar dies at the end of the movie, it's implied that Maurice will take his place as leader. In the original franchise, the ape society was led by an orangutan called "The Lawgiver."

• These motion capture actors have apes on the brain! In the film, Andy Serkis plays Caesar, while famed "movement coach" Terry Notary plays Rocket. Oddly enough, both men have played King Kong before— Serkis played him in 2005's King Kong, while Notary played him in Kong: Skull Island.

• Credit Where Credit's Due: The script might be disappointing, but the ape effects in War are top notch. The CGI has improved exponentially with each successive film, and that's especially true here. 

Take Maurice, for example. He looks absolutely real to me, and if I didn't know he was a CGI creation, I'd think that the director just filmed a real, highly trained orangutan. I think it's his realistic ape eyes that complete the illusion.

Unfortunately Caesar doesn't fare quite as well. It's not that he doesn't look a living, breathing creature, because he does. It's just that he doesn't look like a real chimp. That's no doubt due to the fact that the filmmakers did their best to map mocap actor Andy Serkis' facial features onto Caesar. Instead of looking like an actual chimp, this makes him look like some kind of weird human/ape hybrid.

• The Colonel's actual name is never spoken in the movie, but according to the patch on his uniform, it's "McCullough."

• The traitor apes working for The Colonel are called "donkeys" by the human soldiers. Supposedly this is a reference to Donkey Kong (com-O-dee!) as well as the fact that these apes are used as pack animals.

• As I said earlier, Dawn was a smartly written film, filled with realistic characters who acted accordingly. Suddenly in War everyone's apparently taken a large dose of Stupid Pills, as they make one boneheaded decision after another. Case in point: Why is Caesar suddenly such a horrible leader in this movie? In the previous film he did whatever was necessary to protect his tribe. Then in War he throws that all away, as he abruptly develops an Ahab-like obsession with killing The Colonel. In fact he's so dead set on murdering him that he can't be bothered to lead his people to their "promised land," sending them off on the journey by themselves!

Yes, The Colonel did kill Caesar's family, which was a bad thing. But that doesn't justify his abandonment of his his huge colony. "The needs of the many" and all that.

Worst of all, the screenwriters actually reference this in the movie, as Maurice says Caesar's need for revenge makes him as bad as Koba (the vengeance-obsessed villain of the previous film). So they recognized that they were corrupting their own character, and then went ahead and did it anyway!

• At one point Caesar and his posse run into Nova's dad, and shoot him in self defense. A few minutes later she wanders out of her cabin and stares down at her father's lifeless body. Not one wisp of emotion ever flickers across her face.

Later in the film, Nova stares amazed at a tree that's inexplicably bloomed in the snow. Luca the gorilla picks a flower from the tree and places it in Nova's hair. A few minutes later Luca's killed. Nova immediately climbs atop his body and sobs uncontrollably. If she was capable of speech, she no doubt would have thrown her head back and screamed to the heavens, "WHYYYYYY?"

So she couldn't possibly care less that her dad was killed, but she's devastated by the loss of a gorilla she's known all of a day. One that she had no prior interaction with, save for the flower thing. What the hell?

Wouldn't it have made much more sense if Maurice had been the one who was killed, and Nova grieved over him? After all, the two of them had a special rapport from the moment they met. I suppose the screenwriters couldn't afford to lose Maurice, since he's been with the series from the beginning and they obviously meant for him to take Caesar's place. The least they could have done though was to establish a bond between Nova and Luca early on, so her reaction to his death would have felt earned. As it stands it comes completely out of nowhere.

• Caesar and his crew meet Bad Ape, a chimp from a zoo who learned to speak by listening to his human captors. Supposedly this is a shocking moment in the franchise, as it confirms that Caesar and his tribe aren't the only talking apes in the world. 

Hmm. The Simian Flu enhanced the intelligence of apes across the globe, so I just assumed they all started talking too. Apparently not though. It seems odd to think that the only apes with the power of speech are in the San Francisco area.

I guess this makes sense though. Caesar was a special case, who was taught sign language at an early age and learned to speak from his owner Will Rodman. He then passed this knowledge onto the various members of his tribe. 

So what's going on in other parts of the world? Did the apes in Europe and Asia become intelligent, but never learned to talk or sign? Or did they made up their own languages?

• Bad Ape lives in a snowy, mountainous environment, and wears human clothing to protect him against the cold. Seems like a good idea. So why don't any of the other apes ever do this? Do they not like the idea of wearing human-made garments, or are they just not affected by the cold?

Seeing them wearing coats and hats would have been a nice tie-in to the original franchise, in which the apes were all fully clothed.

• Welp, they finally went there. 2017 will go down in history as the year in which a Planet Of The Apes movie featured an ape that actually threw its own feces at a human.

• More stupidity: After Rocket throws his crap at a soldier, the man is so incensed that he opens the ape cage and enters it alone! Doesn't tell anyone else what he's doing, doesn't call for backup, just waltzes right into a cage filled with hundreds of angry apes. And then of course he's immediately pulled underground and presumably killed. Serves him right.

• Even more stupidity: The Colonel knows the Simian Flu virus has mutated, causing human survivors to lose the ability to think and speak. Several of his men— including his own son— have succumbed to this new strain.

So of course he and his men take absolutely zero precautions against catching the disease. Not even so much as a cotton face mask. They even go so far as to house hundreds of captured apes (who are likely Simian Flu carriers) in the middle of their camp!

Granted, The Colonel does execute several of his own men who have the disease, but only AFTER they start showing symptoms. It's way too late by that point!

• Still more stupidity: Nova sneaks into The Colonel's camp to give Caesar food and water. Hilariously she makes little or no attempt to hide, and none of the human soldiers ever seem to notice her. Isn't The Colonel building a wall to keep out a rapidly-approaching army? One would think security at the camp would be at an all-time high in such a situation. Apparently not though, as a little girl can come and go as she pleases.

• I don't think the screenwriters understand how tunnels work.

Maurice, Rocket & Bad Ape look for a way to rescue Caesar and their people from The Colonel. Suddenly Bad Ape falls through some rickety wooden planks, down into a series of tunnels that run under the camp. Maurice and Bad Ape then explore these cement-lined tunnels. They spot a ladder, Bad Ape climbs it, and somehow pokes his head up through the ground inside the camp.

So... did he dig his way through several inches of cement while we weren't looking? Or was there a hole in the top of the tunnel, covered by just a couple inches of grass and dirt? Based on the way his head pops through, it certainly looks like the latter. How the hell did none of The Colonel's men ever accidentally fall through this deathtrap?

Later on Bad Ape finds another tunnel and this time sticks his head through the ground inside the captive apes' cage, rescuing them. Again, this second hole appears to be covered by nothing more than a couple inches of dirt and grass. There's no way at least one of the hundreds of apes in the cage wouldn't have fallen through.

• The Colonel says the Northern Army is coming to eliminate his rogue faction. In order to hold back this technologically advance invasion force, he orders a wall be built around his camp.

What's this tremendous, impregnable wall made of, you ask? Solid steel? reinforced concrete? Bamboo? Nope! It's made of logs and whatever other junk the ape slaves can find to stack up. "Primitive" doesn't even begin to describe it. In fact, if left to themselves, the apes could probably make a better looking and more substantial wall!

Sure enough, when the Northern Army arrives, it only takes one or two air to ground missiles to completely punch through the sad, ramshackle little wall.

• As I mentioned earlier, the film ends with a hilariously convenient deus ex machina in the form of an avalanche, that literally sweeps away every single one of the apes' human adversaries. It gives new meaning to the word contrived.

After watching this scene, I am 99% sure the following conversation happened in the War For The Planet Of The Apes writer's room:

Mark Bomback: "OK, so Caesar just singlehandedly took out The Colonel's troops with a well-timed explosion, but then the massive Northern Army arrives. How are we gonna resolve this plot line?"
Matt Reeves: "Well... we could have Caesar rally his apes and attack the Northern Army."
Mark Bomback: "Nah, the movie's already well over two hours long. That'd add at least another hour to the runtime."
Matt Reeves: "We could end it as the Northern Army arrives and have the apes fight them in a fourth movie."
Mark Bomback: "Nah, we can't do that. Andy Serkis is only contracted for three films. He'd want a fortune to do a fourth. What are we gonna do?"
Matt Reeves: "How about this? A big avalanche comes down the mountain and wipes out all the bad humans, leaving the apes fully in charge of the world?"
Mark Bomback: "Are you kidding me? That's the dumbest, most hackneyed ending possible! The movie'd be laughed off the screen and we'd never work in Hollywood again!"
Matt Reeves: "Fine. So what do you suggest we do instead?"

Cut to one year later, as the film ends with a giant avalanche wiping out all the bad humans, leaving the apes fully in charge of the world.

• In Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, a TV in the background airs a news broadcast stating that the spaceship Icarus has entered Mars' atmosphere.

A bit later we see a newspaper headline saying the Icarus has been "Lost In Space."

At the end of War, I half expected to see a post-credits scene of the Icarus returning to Earth, as the astronauts discovered the planet was now ruled by apes. I still wouldn't rule this out. They went to a lot of trouble to mention this ship in Rise, much more so than if it was just a fun little Easter egg.

War For The Planet Of The Apes is a big step backwards for the franchise, and a disappointing finish to the trilogy. Everything that made Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes great has been turned on its head and dumbed down here, resulting in a film that's mediocre at best. For completists only. I wish I could score it higher, but sadly, I have to give it a C+.