Stop Monkeying Around..."War For The Planet Of The Apes"

War For the Planet of the Apes (2017)

Rated PG-13

Starring Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Steve Zahn, Amiah Miller,

Directed by Matt Reeves

The Story:

When Caesar's (Serkis) world is destroyed, he decides to take his revenge against the Colonel (Harrelson) and his army. There is no avoiding war any longer.

Easily better than the Transformer saga, the Planet of the Apes trilogy concludes (?) with quite possibly the best of the series.

That said, I was never the biggest fan of these films anyway, so my judgement might be slightly askew. :)

Caesar's tale wraps up, and they establish enough pieces that it can conclude wrapping back to the original Planet of the Apes film, or they may just continue and keep retelling future chapters.

Beautifully shot, and the incredible production values, if you've come this far into the series, you won't want to stop now.

Harrelson is also a wonderful foil for Caesar and personalizes the war, on both sides.

Final Grade: C+

What Happens In Vegas..."The Hangover: Part III"

I can't believe I watched the whole thing...

The Story:

The Wolfpack returns, one last time as things come full circle.  Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) must track down Chow (Ken Jeong) who has $21 Million in stolen gold from Marshall (John Goodman) or Marshall is going to kill Doug (Justin Bartha).  Strangely, this time everyone remembers everything that has happened to them, so there is no memory loss aspect this go-round.

As I said, this film brings the trilogy full-circle to a conclusion.  How satisfying it is, totally depends on how much you enjoyed these films.

I've been firmly in the camp of "they're okay, but nowhere near as great as people make them out to be".  At least, I guess the first one.  I'm not sure the same acclaim came with the second one.

This series has provided a series of gags which elicit smiles, smirks, chuckles, groans or outright laughs.

Sadly, the outright laughs usually number single digits in each of the films.

How Mr. Chow became the focal point of the series is a strange twist of events.  He's begun to overshadow the movie himself, which is weird for what should be an outrageous buddy film.

The three leads have their parts down pat, and they seem to quite enjoy doing these films, but I think they're probably all glad that this series is hopefully behind them.

It's run out of steam, and it's best to part ways now, though the filmmakers definitely leave an opening if they want to make a 4th film.

How Stu is going to get out of that mess is anyone's guess.

Again, depending on your enjoyment of the first two will help gauge your enjoyment of this one.

Final Grade: C, which is about on par for the whole series for me.  This is not as good as the first but better than the second.

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: Nope, not a franchise I need to see again.