Mark Bomback

An otherwise solid (if a bit dour) film saddled with a rather lacking finale and conclusion that takes a bit of the air out of it. Still, in the wildly uneven X-Men franchise, this is one of the better installments.

It's a western! It might be called war but it's a Western. Replace the apes with Indians and the story has all the tropes of westerns, individual seeking revenge, individual trying to destroy a threat, miscellaneous adoption of enemy children, heroic deaths, final escape over the hills (or sand in this case). I enjoyed it but also found it rather depressing.

Mistrust between intelligent apes and post-apocalyptic humans leads to conflict.

It's got intelligent writing, believable characters, amazing visuals, and everything about the world seems real. It takes itself very seriously - as seriously as if it were a film about a real war. There's never even the slightest break from darkness. There are some really cool Apes Kicking Ass shots, but in context they're too tragic to be fun. And there's zero suspense - everything is too inevitable for that. show more It's an impressive movie, though, and I look forward to when they finally get around to remaking the original.

Concept: A
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: A
Special effects/design: A
Acting: B
Music: B

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 3.3/4 show less

A runaway train is... unstoppable.

How is this movie good? I'd like to think it was made on a dare. Someone took the most idiotic, cliche-ridden, disaster of a script they could find, and challenged the director to make a good movie out of it. (Sadly, that would explain how most of Fox's movies get made.) And somehow they pulled it off. What the hey.

Concept: F
Story: F
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: A
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: B

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 2.3/4