WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES

PG, 140 minutes. Opens Friday at Niantic. Opens Thursday at Waterford, Stonington, Lisbon, Westbrook. The recent prequels to the “Planet of the Apes” have created a core of solidly grounded realism in a spectacular fantasy world. It all reaches a breathtaking climax in “War for the Planet of the Apes.” Visually, the film is gorgeous, with complex but clearly presented battles and utterly lifelike computer-generated anthropoids perfectly meshed with on-camera performers. A “simian flu” pandemic has decimated the human population while boosting the intelligence of apes. Mankind’s remaining survivors and their likely successor species live far apart, apes in forested encampments and humans in compounds salvaged from scraps of their old civilization’s infrastructure. By the time we re-enter the story, the apes have evolved over about 15 years, now communicating complex ideas through speech or American Sign Language. Humans have been changed by the plague, as well, many moving closer to violent primal urges. That we meet them at the beginning in military camo, crawling in to ambush a peaceful ape clan, isn’t much of a spoiler given the film’s title. The frantic back-and-forth combat between well weaponized humans and stronger, faster apes is the kind of alarming, agonizing-yet-exciting firefight that has been director Matt Reeves’ signature since 2008’s “Cloverfield.” Just as that giant monster epic powerfully touched on post-9/11 anxieties, his second “Apes” film explores socially charged themes fitting a dark time. Shortly after a post-combat cease-fire is brokered between the species, a devastating new attack is launched by the merciless, unnamed Colonel (skin-headed Woody Harrelson channeling Col. Kurtz from “Apocalypse Now”). Smoldering with fury, Caesar pursues an Old Testament retaliation, tracking the Colonel to his headquarters in the snowbound north to claim eye-for-an-eye vengeance. The Colonel gradually reveals his messianic religious motivations for the coming genocide, and also for one of the film’s queasiest and most horrible images, the numerous apes literally crucified at his outpost. Bringing Caesar to such a hell on Earth is the final stage of a fascinating hero’s journey. Caesar debuted in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” as a bright young chimpanzee, loving humans because his human “father” (James Franco) truly loved him. Later, scarred by abusive human oppressors, Caesar became a Spartacus-like rebel chief focused on preserving his endangered clan. In this third act he emerges as a scarred, bitter survivor who finds that revenge, while achievable, comes at a steep price — perhaps the cost of his soul as he battles his own inner demons. If reviving pop-culture oldies has become Hollywood’s prime directive, this trilogy’s confident work, like Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” triptych, is the way to do it. I recommend it without reservation. — Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

WISH UPON

PG-13, 90 minutes. Opens Friday at Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. What to make of the curious, ridiculous horror-lite “Wish Upon”? This is a spooky teen story that’s not particularly heavy on the scares and over-delivers on the unintentional giggles, almost ensuring it a spot as a cult movie, like the hilariously misguided “The Room,” though this sports a far bigger budget and higher profile names among the cast and crew. Written by Barbara Marshall and directed by “Annabelle” helmer John R. Leonetti, “Wish Upon” plays on the haunted object premise, with a mysterious Chinese wish box wreaking havoc on the life of Clare (Joey King), who can’t stop making wishes, even as her loved ones drop dead around her. Young Clare has had a hard life. Her mother (Elizabeth Rohm), as we see in a prologue, committed suicide, and things haven’t been easy since then. Her dad (Ryan Phillippe) dumpster dives for scrap metal, and Clare is a bit of a misfit at school, a target of violent, crazy outbursts from the local mean girl (within the first 15 minutes, a truly epic cafeteria cat fight goes down). When dad brings home a dumpster treasure — a mysterious box engraved with Chinese characters — Clare facetiously uses it to wish ill upon her enemy. And that wish comes true, gruesomely. So Clare keeps wishing for things like popularity, love and money. By the time Clare gets the ancient Chinese characters translated, the box has turned her into its Gollum. “Wish Upon” is an odd horror film, because the monster is also our heroine. It’s not like the box itself is all that terrifyingly compelling; the worst thing is how it transforms its owners. So even though she willingly puts her friends and family in fatal danger because she wants to keep making out with the popular guy, we have to keep rooting for her. “Wish Upon” is an entirely harmless, defanged horror flick for the younger set. It’s never all that scary, but it is pretty darn funny — a curio to be enjoyed for its silliness more than anything else. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

MAUDIE

1/2 PG-13, 115 minutes. Opens Friday at Madison Art Cinemas. Filmed in a rural Newfoundland region where time seems to have stood still, “Maudie” tells the true story of two loners facing a harsh world together, like a pair of trees on a frozen, bare landscape. Maud Dawley (played by Sally Hawkins), born in 1903 Nova Scotia, suffered as a child from what would now be diagnosed as juvenile arthritis. As an adult, her condition worsened and she walked with a painful limp; nonetheless, she loved to paint colorful pictures of flowers, trees and animals. In her 30s, she met Everett Lewis (Ethan Hawke), a taciturn bachelor living in a tiny farmhouse far from the nearest town, after he placed an ad for a housekeeper. They married and made a quiet life together, with Maud eventually becoming an internationally acclaimed folk artist. (That house, its walls and windows playfully layered with Maud’s bright work, now stands as a permanent exhibit in the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.) As told in Aisling Walsh’s engaging film, this isn’t exactly a love story; Everett, for some time, is abusive and withdrawn, and it’s often not clear whether Maud feels any attachment to him or if she’s just there because of a lack of other options. But what shines through is the beauty of Guy Godfree’s cinematography — the light has a lovely, soft stillness to it, like a painting — and a remarkable performance by Hawkins, whose impossibly wide smile seems to bring the sun. A brief glimpse of the real Maud, at the end, shows us the uncanny accuracy of Hawkins’s physical transformation, depicting Maud’s severe stoop, curling hands and tiny, crushed voice. But Hawkins also creates a gentle, loving soul, determined to find beauty and goodness in a world that hasn’t treated her kindly. — Moira Macdonald, The Seattle Times