Valerian and the War for the Planet of the Apes: Homecoming
Last week I have visited local cinema 3 times and have watched next movies:
- Valerian and the City of Thousand Planets
- Spider-Man: Homecoming
- War for the Planet of the Apes
Each of these films didn’t become a recognized masterpiece, at the same time it is not the worst films of recent times. They are all summer blockbusters and have much in common. I will briefly express my opinion about each of them.
Valerian and the City of Thousand Planets is the most expensive film ever made in the history of French cinematography. It is directed by the famous French director Luc Besson. The setting and characters are based on a French comics series Valérian et Laureline which were issued from 1967 to 2010. The movie has astonishing visuals which can be compared only with Avatar of James Cameron. Aside from the awesome visuals, I have enjoyed the pleasing acting of Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, and Rihanna. Though don’t expect much from the plot. It is quite simple and fast paced adventure. Typical pop-corn blockbuster which stands out from the pile of similar movies by over the top visuals.
Spider-Man: Homecoming is the second Spider-Man film reboot but it isn’t a typical origin movie. The plot takes place after the events shown in the film Captain America: Civil War where the new version of Peter Parker was introduced. The new Spider-Man movie with Tom Holland is slightly better than first films with Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield but not because of casting choice. Spider-Man: Homecoming is produced by Marvel Studios and only distributed by Sony Pictures, while previous films were produced by Sony. That makes a huge difference as Marvel is undoubtedly the best conveyor for the production of super-hero movies. As in all Marvel movies, we have here decent action scenes, few funny jokes, the presence of other superheroes and a Stan Lee cameo.
War for the Planet of the Apes is the third instalment in the reboot series. The whole trilogy is about a continuous confrontation between humans and apes. I suggest watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) before watching War for the Planet of the Apes. The film has an interesting story, well-crafted script, the eccentric villain leading a “holy war” against the Apes. The villain called Colonel is played by Woody Harrelson. While the ape leader Caeser is still played by Andy Serkis with the use of motion-capture technologies. If you replace apes by humans — the movie will become a casual war film. Movie has all elements of war film such as recon missions, assaults, ambushes casualties, captivity, treachery, heroism, and a cult of the leader. But the atmosphere of the post-apocalypse would still be preserved. Probably because of it, some sequences of the film strongly resembled the gameplay of The Last of Us.
If to compare these three films with each other, then I’ll give the first place to Valerian, the second — to the Apes and the third to the Spider-Man.