War of the Planet of the Apes--Off Beat But Entertaining

The Shakespearean Cast of War of the Planet of the Apes

I am definitely willing to suspend my disbelief and accept the premise that in some apocalyptic world, apes may be as smart as humans.  Heck, I think they could give our Congress a run for their money right now.  It's part of a long running series of movies that have mainly flopped, but they keep making enough money to pay for the next generation of gorilla suits.  The latest installment is quirky and thin on plot, but I was interested in the movie all the way through.  Not better than Wonder Woman, but maybe close to Spider-Man.  

     Surprisingly the acting is at a very high level, and it is possible to really believe in the characters even though they all are apes.  They are engaged in a battle with humans, and struggle with their temptation to give into racism (specie-ism?).  I didn't think it was a war though.  You're supposed to believe that there are almost no humans or apes left in the world after a series of apocalyptic events.  Still, the main drama involves a small group of apes, and maybe a battalion of humans.  I found that confusing.  Why is a battle with just a few characters considered a world war?   Meanwhile we find out that there is some other group of humans left, probably the Russians, though they never really do much in the movie.  

     But okay, if you're willing to settle for a Battle for a county involving apes and humans, it's a decent movie.  It could just as well be a cowboys and Indians movie, with the Cowboys tending towards treachery, and the Indians showing much higher morality.    

     You could also draw a parallel with Hogan's Heros, in which the humans play the part of the Nazis.  They are mainly bad, but not very bright and do a lot of dumb things that allow the apes to take advantage of them.  To some extent the apes are also kind of dumb.   I mean if you take some of them prisoner, maybe next time you will remember to post a guard to prevent them from plotting an escape.  

   

       The movie succeeds as a drama, probably not Oscar material, but not that far from it either.  As a science fiction story it's a bit of dud because the story line is weak.  The battle scenes are fairly realistic, and there may be some blood and guts spilled.  Maybe your ten year old doesn't need to see that.  But if you like science fiction, apes, cowboys vs Indians and Hogan's Heroes, you will like this movie. Overall I give it a B.  

    

Petition: Deny Health Care Insurance Coverage to Congress

I started an online petition to make it a federal crime to offer ANY healthcare insurance to Members of Congress, if they vote to take away coverage from US citizens. They need to know what it feels like to not have the opportunity to protect themselves in their families, if this is what they want millions of Americans to do. To clarify, I'm not saying to simply force them off their current plan and get private insurance, but to actually DENY ANY healthcare insurance for Congress. Fair's fair. You want to take away insurance from us, we're going to take it away from you.  And by the way, if the American people are mad enough, we can indeed force you to pass this law.

Feel free to comment and paste a link on social media.

petition: Deny Health Care Insurance Coverage to Congress

Make it a crime to give health care insurance or discounted medical service to members of Congress if...

WWW.THEPETITIONSITE.COM

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/131/789/907/deny-health-care-insurance-coverage-to-congress/?taf_id=39032501&cid=fb_na#bbfb=843414347

Spider Sense Tingling---I Think I'm Going to Hurl!

   Marvel inexplicably botched the new Spider-Man movie, after finally wresting control of the franchise back from Sony.  Everyone liked the new interpretation of Spidey in Captain America:  Civil War.  Young actor Johnny Manziel does a great job being a high energy, cocky kid, and that performance carries over to Spider-Man homecoming.  The actors are all rather good, but the script is a bit of a letdown.  

    Marvel realizes the importance of minor characters in carrying the movie, and tried to do something great with Spider-Man's friends. Plus they did a great job of getting an ethnically diverse cast.  The problem is that the characters seem to have been written for Welcome Back Kotter, in which a whole group of kids get into trouble, have precarious romances, squabbles with the school bullies, school dances, sporting events, part time jobs and all sorts of stuff that is just not interesting.  You have to have some of that because Peter Parker is a high school kid, but the movie shouldn't be about high school.  There are over a dozen characters in the movie who derived from decades of stories, and it is simply not possible to develop that many characters in a two hour movie.  I like the characters, like the casting, but there are too many of them and they are not interesting enough to carry the film.  Put them in an entire season of Welcome Back Kotter, but they should not have been crammed into a single movie.
     We see cameo appearances from other Marvel heroes in this movie.  It is totally believable that the Avengers would be a major presence in New York City, so why not?   It seems natural to bump into one or two.
    The bad guys in this movie are basically organized crime figures who have some really high tech illegal weapons for sale, probably made by the Acme company preferred by Wile E. Coyote for catching road runners.  Or perhaps it's the company that services the Evil Dark Side in Star Wars, because none of their weapons are actually as good as a decent M-16, and I don't think they were actually able to shoot anyone in the whole move. They have complete dolts in charge of marketing, which is why the bad guys can't make much money.  As it is, they are kind of like an Army surplus store gone bad.  A single Wal-Mart store definitely makes more money than they do even with super-villainry.  So why be a Super-villain?  Well, I guess if you love your work, it's okay.  Let's just say that the bad guys don't make much sense, and their bark is worse than their bite.  

    I was glad that we didn't have to suffer through the death of Uncle Ben for the fiftieth time in moviedom, nor do we have to hear that with great power comes great responsibility. The problem is that we replaced those campy features with other campy high school dramas.  

     So if you like superhero movies and you liked Welcome Back Kotter, then this is the movie for you.  If you love Spider-man but not Kotter, you still have to see it but keep your expectations low.  It's not that great of a movie, despite it being one of the most enormously popular franchises in movie history.    

Geez, is it just me who thinks so, or is Spider-Man played by a younger version of Johnny Manziel?