War for the Planet of the Apes.

[Kelvin]

Even though I was really disappointed with this film, it's sad to see how badly it's done at the box office. A significant drop from Dawn, and might not even make it's money back, apparently.

Really hope that doesn't signal the end of the series, as the first two films are really good, and there's nothing in this film to suggest it couldn't be great again, if they just moved the story along more next time.

[colacentral]

Why do you think that is? Opening so close to Spider-Man? In this country at least it was a shame to see it get promoted on Graham Norton a full month before its release so Norton could go on his summer holidays.

[Paaaaul]

It was too grim and didn't have a joyously happy ending.
And humans are evil and about to die out.

People like their blockbusters to be uplifting and to have a positive outcome for the group they relate to.
If you relate to the humans, you won't be uplifted.
If you relate to the monkeys, you're mostly watching a concentration camp film.

[colacentral]

But the audience doesn't know that until they've seen it and it got unanimously good reviews. The marketing is not that different from Dawn really, which was also quite grim.

I think Dawn is quite underappreciated with the general public. It seems to have a core base of supporters who love it (myself included) but maybe the general public just feel like it's another sequel to an old franchise they've lost interest in.

[Paaaaul]

But the audience doesn't know that until they've seen it and it got unanimously good reviews. The marketing is not that different from Dawn really, which was also quite grim.

I think Dawn is quite underappreciated with the general public. It seems to have a core base of supporters who love it (myself included) but maybe the general public just feel like it's another sequel to an old franchise they've lost interest in.

According to Box Office Mojo, it made 40% of its first week takings in its second week, and lost a further 48% the following week (*US figures ) That kind of tail-off is often down to word of mouth.
I loved it, but I haven't recommended it to many people I know because it's in a weird space where it's too heavy for a truly mainstream audience, but too franchise-y for those who like more esoteric stuff.

[Small Man Big Horse]

SPOILERS


I was very disappointed, tbh. The first hour, when it felt like a road movie or revenge thriller, I was a bit bored, but generally enjoying it. However, from the point where they arrived at Kurtz' camp, the film nosedived majorly. For a start, far too many events hinged on characters making bizarre or unbelievable decisions; Nova just trotting into the base to feed Ceaser some grain? The army sending helicopters, tanks and thousands of troops to take on a mad general who was killing the apes they're scared of, at a time of global catastrophe?

If the first and second films succeed because you can absolutely see both competing points of view and why things would escalate, this film fails because so much of the story and so many of the events would only occur in an artificial world where they have to happen to move the story along. Ironic, then, that by the end of this film, almost nothing of significance has actually changed since the end of the second film. In fact, if you tacked the last five minutes of this film onto the last five minutes of that film, you'd literally have lost nothing, narratively. It's just two hours of saying nothing interesting, ponderously.

I absolutely love Dawn, so I have to admit to being very disappointed. That's such an interesting, subtle and layered film by blockbuster standards, yet beyond the (slightly muddled) anti-military message, there's nothing that interesting or insightful in this film.

I just watched it tonight and agree with you completely, bar that I think I'm even more disappointed by it, that last hour fucked me off no end and the whole thing was nothing we hadn't seen before. When that ridiculously convenient avalanche turned up I was loudly shouting at the screen, and that happened again during Caesar's drawn out death scene. I was quite looking forward to the next Batman movie before this but now I'm not optimistic at all.

Edit: Thinking about it I feel the title has to take some of the blame for my disappointment, and if it had been called "Minor Squabble For The Planet Of The Apes" I'd probably have liked it more.

[colacentral]

To be fair the avalanche wasn't just a well-timed convenience, it was caused by the explosion.