War for the Planet of the Apes (4 Stars)

I went to see this film badly prepared. I wanted to watch the previous two films first, but I didn't get round to it. I've been too busy watching the fifth season of "Lost". That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

There's a lot that happens in this film, but I'll only mention one thing. The simian flu which wiped out most of the human race has evolved. It now has a new effect on the survivors. It causes the intelligence of the humans to decrease, including taking away the ability to talk. It isn't a gradual development. Anyone who is infected is changed within a day. This is a positive development, as far as the story goes. It's making the new film series prequels to the 1968 original film, "Planet of the Apes". This was canon, and so was its sequel, "Beneath the Planet of the Apes". After that everything deteriorated fast. Making money took priority over making good films.

"War for the Planet of the Apes" isn't intended to be the final part in a trilogy. It's simply another film in a series. A fourth film has already been planned. In an interview Andy Serkis, who plays Caesar in the films, has suggested that there will be five films, but the exact number hasn't yet been decided. Based on the box office success of the newest film there will be no financial hindrances to making more films.

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On another topic: one of my readers has sent me a message telling me that she doesn't find my reviews as good as they were a year ago.

First of all, I'd like to thank her for reading my blog so regularly that she can notice differences. I wish everyone would read my blog every day for a year.

Is it true that my posts aren't as good as they used to be? I don't know. Sometimes I read one of my old posts and I think, "Wow, that was good". Other times I read an old post and feel unhappy that my comments were so superficial. My blog isn't consistent. Sometimes I have a lot to say about a film, sometimes very little. Sometimes I give a detailed description of the plot, sometimes I fly off on a tangent and write about something totally unrelated. My early reviews, 2010 to 2011, were very short. I wrote more once I got into the routine of writing, but even now I sometimes write very little.

My popular post list isn't a reflection on which posts are my best. Usually more than half of the posts concern films that I watched over the last few weeks. It encourages me that my newest posts are the most popular, because that shows me that I have regular readers who check out my new reviews. Looking at the popular post list today, six of the posts are recent posts. The other four are probably successful as a matter of luck, because the posts just happen to contain the keywords that people are searching for.

I've written 2516 posts, including this one. Some of them are better than others. That's natural. I'm no Roger Ebert and I'm no Joe Bob Briggs. They're my two favourite film reviewers. All I can say is that my reviews come from my heart. If you read my blog you'll get to know me.