The new Planet of the Apes makes you twist against the humans

If you like to tell or listen to stories - and this includes going to the movies - you must have stumbled upon the expression "voluntary suspension of disbelief", coined by the English poet Samuel Coleridge in 1817.

Suspending disbelief is the beautiful way of saying that a writer (or director) is so good that you can ignore the scientific mistakes and improbable scenes of his work - and he willingly agrees to spend a long time immersed in an invented, By other laws.

Planet of the Apes: The War, which went out in theaters on the last day 3, is a class by Coleridge. In the film, a lineage of intelligent and talkative apes, led by the charismatic chimpanzee Cesar, sweeps the Earth's human species. And those who watch not only dive headlong into this remote scientific possibility but take on the monkey side (!) - in movie theaters around the world, Homo sapiens groups pay admission to cheer for their own annihilation.

The new title of the franchise, as you can imagine from the previous paragraph, is the last of a trilogy that tells how the world we know came to rest in the primate's hand, setting the post-apocalyptic scene of the original Planet of the Apes from 1968.

Because of that, director Matt Reeves lends a hand to anyone who picked up the tram, and before the opening scene, with brief phrases projected onto the screen, sums up what happened in the saga so far. Nothing prevents you, of course, from watching the two previous films of 2011 and 2014 - they are not as good as the 2017, but they are still well above the average of blockbusters.

Contrary to what sells the title, The War is not a war movie all the time. In his recipe, in addition to many (many) shots, go west, Bible, a compelling psychological drama and historical references.

Chimpanzee Caesar (Andy Serkis) is a particularly hairy Moses species.

In the period of history, thanks to a virus created by human scientists, he and the other monkeys have already reached the same level of intelligence as Homo sapiens. Caesar speaks as Getulio Vargas, rides as Lancelot and is John Lennon's standard of pacifism.

The same virus that creates super-apes kills humans. In an empty world, with abandoned cities already taken by nature, the cruel Colonel McCullough (Woody Harrelson) leads a small army of survivors, immune to the "simian flu."

The human barracks is also a kind of concentration camp, where monkeys who used to follow Koba - a bonobo who rebelled against Caesar's cause and were killed - are subjected to forced labor.

McCullough is a post-apocalyptic version of Colonel Kurtz of Apocalypse Now. His humor, with psychopathic mood, floats unpredictably, and includes fury and reflexive moments typical of Gary Oldman's villains. He wants to save mankind - which is a good idea in principle - but also put a nice price on the head of Caesar, the hero the two previous films taught us to love and support. From aviator glasses and shaved head, Harrison's character is the stereotype of the military intolerant - which you simply can not support, even when it is the extinction of the human being at stake.

All this is narrated in the most sober tone possible - and back and forth the solemn edge. The film, against so many superhero films, does not use humor to mock or relieve tension.

In the opening minutes, McCullough throws the first stone, and puts Caesar in a dilemma: turn the other cheek or seek revenge. The second option tosses the ape-man into an all-encompassing adventure, joined by Bad Ape - comic relief - and the human Nova - a silent child whose squire Maurice, the most sympathetic (and wise) monkey in film history, decides to adopt. From there forward it's spoiler - best not to comment.

Throughout the film, it is impossible to remember that behind the computer graphics of Caesar there is a human actor. Each movement of Serkis's face translates into the chimpanzee's features, which, according to the actor, is merit of post-production.

"The basics have not changed much. You wear a jumpsuit with dots that send out a signal that is picked up by 360-degree cameras, and you wear a head-mounted camera that captures your facial expression, "Serkis told the newsroom. "What really changed was the artists and the program they use to generate the characters later. The performances of the actors are rendered with much more fidelity. "

Caesar might not have been the hero the blockbusters wanted, but it was what they needed. With middle-age crisis, ethical dilemmas and a quasi-religious journey, he bears on his back three perfectly coherent, interconnected films - all of which function as a solid whole, not a sequence of afterthoughts made to the touch of the box to fill the pockets.