A Quiet Place: Day One

Posted by cat2002116 on July 18, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I’d seen the previous two movies in this franchise, so I was immediately interested in seeing this prequel movie. I will say that, based on the trailer, I thought that Sam was going to be a completely different character to the one that actually appeared in the movie. I wasn’t expecting the movie to open with a group of terminally ill cancer patients, including Sam, in a hospice…but with that opening scene and that understanding that Sam was going to die very soon, it allowed me to have a better, deeper understanding of her character…and what motivated her throughout the movie. I listened to a review earlier where the reviewer seemed confused about why Sam was so desperate to get pizza…but to me, it made perfect sense. She was already dying; with the whole world ending around her, she’d never get another chance to have that pizza…to have that memory of her father, which the movie shows was a big reason for her wanting to go and get pizza.

I did really enjoy the friendship that formed between Sam and Eric, even though it was sometimes difficult to hear what they were saying to each other. While I understand needing to keep the atmosphere of near-silence in the movie, I feel like there was too much quiet and that some of the character development was lost during those moments, where the conversation was too quiet to really figure out what was going on.

I obviously loved Frodo the cat in this movie…and if you don’t mind a minor spoiler and, like me, love cats, I can safely say that the cat is fine. There is a bit…okay, a lot…suspension of disbelied required, as even the best trained animal isn’t likely to just be absolutely fine with humans being killed all around him, but I could do that for the sake of, ‘At least the cat is fine!’

I thought there were some really nice scenes in this movie, such as the one where Sam is walking through the street right after the bus she’s on is blown up. I also really liked the scene where she dreams the world is back to normal. I actually believed the world was back to normal for a second…until the obligatory jump scare.

I also really appreciated that, despite the fact there were a lot of people dying through the movie, there wasn’t a lot of detail shown. It’s really good that this movie actually paid attention to the idea that less is more.

I will say that the only real nitpick I have is…how did everyone figure out that the aliens were hunting by sound? I know that the helicopters were broadcasting this message, but it went from the aliens killing people to everyone then being as quiet as possible…and that didn’t really make much sense.

Despite the problem mentioned above, though, I did really enjoy this movie and found the three main characters engaging and interesting (cat included). I don’t think you need to have watched the previous two movies to enjoy this one, but if you have seen them, I do recommend seeing this one too.

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder Season One

Posted by cat2002116 on July 14, 2024
Posted in: Reviews, Television, Thriller, Young Adult. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

So, I really liked the book A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. When my oldest nibling told me that the TV series was available to watch on BBC iPlayer, I was immediately interested in watching it…and I watched all six episodes in one night.

While I did have some mixed feelings about this series, I did like Pip in the series. My sister mentioned that she felt Pip’s autistic traits were more obvious in the TV series than in the books, and I’m inclined to agree…though Ry always felt that Pip was obviously autistic to them in the books.

It’s hard not to compare the series to the book, as it was obviously based on that. I will say that a lot of the actors portrayed the characters they played really well. I’m more used to seeing Matthew Baynton in comedy roles than serious ones, but I did think he did a particularly good job at portraying Elliot Ward.

While the book was always going to be better, I was kind of disappointed that so much was left out of the series. There was a lot of intrigue that wasn’t included…and I really didn’t like the fact that one of the main characters had her entire backstory completely changed (Nat Da Silva). One of the really good things about the book was just how many secrets Andie was revealed to have, showing that she wasn’t the ‘good’ girl everyone had assumed her to be. I can’t really say that there was subject matter the series didn’t want to touch on, either, as it didn’t shy away from showing what had happened to Becca.

I did like the flashbacks to Pip as a child and when she saw Andie for the last time, but I did kind of feel that that particular flashback was shown a lot more than was really necessary. While it was good to gradually know more about that situation (such as Pip telling Sal where Andie was), I didn’t think it needed to be shown as many times as it was.

I mentioned above that I was disappointed in one of the characters having her backstory changed…and I have to say that I didn’t like the way her brother, Daniel, was changed in the series. The series really didn’t need a charming potential love interest (it was a bit weird that Pip called him cute, since he was always angry, and older than her…not to mention married…in the book), especially as the series already had Ravi!

I did like Naomi and Cara and their relationship with each other, as well as their friendship with Pip. I thought that Yasmin Al-Khudhairi did a really good job of capturing Naomi’s personality, along with the guilt that clearly affected her after the car crash and everything that happened with Sal. And I really liked Cara’s interactions with Pip. I can’t really say the same for the rest of Pip’s friends, though. I didn’t feel any real connection to them, as I didn’t feel their characters were developed very much throughout the series…which is a shame, as there were a lot of good things about Pip’s interactions with them in the book.

I did enjoy Pip’s interactions with her father in this series…but I didn’t really like her relationship with her mother as much. Her mother seemed to be trying to parent sometimes, only to be distant and preoccupied later on in the series. Plus, unlike in the book, Pip showed very little sign of her project affecting her in a negative way. Yes, she went out to a party…but her parents seemed entirely on board with her doing that. In that respect, I’d say that the series dropped the ball a little.

I do think that the series stands well enough on its own, but it’s not a truly faithful adaptation to one of my favourite books. While I can understand having to change certain things when switching from one medium to another, there was too much changed in this series that actually took away from the story instead of adding to it, in my opinion.

If you watch the series on its own merits, you’ll probably enjoy it. But as an adaptation, I will say that I was a bit disappointed in many of the changes that were made from book to TV series.

Not Alone

Posted by cat2002116 on June 25, 2024
Posted in: Apocalyptic, Books, End of The World Book Reading Club, Reviews. Tagged: , , , . 1 Comment

I love the fact that I now have a new book coming every month…a book that I have no idea what it will be, other than the genre of apocalyptic/dystopian. Unfortunately, I missed the initial delivery of this book, so I had to avoid spoilers for what was in the box until I could get the rearranged delivery.

When I opened the box, I was immediately drawn in by the front cover. The blurb succeeded in piquing my interest even more, as I’m always kind of a sucker for reunion stories…and more so when they have an apocalyptic style setting.

The stronges part of this book was definitely the relationship between Katie and her son, Harry. However, I did feel like Katie’s decision not to tell him the real truth…and let him think there were ‘nasties’…made things so much more difficult. Children tend to understand a lot more than they’re given credit for, and what Harry’s imagination came up with was clearly much worse than the truth, given that he wasn’t that scared when Katie finally told him the truth.

I did find the constant flashbacks to before the storm a bit jarring and not really necessary. I guess those did a good job of showing that Katie was stuck in the Before and not able to embrace the new world, despite being forced to live in it…which is also understandable, since every breath she takes exposes her lungs to the toxic fumes of the air.

Katie’s struggles to breathe and her constant chest pain gave a kind of urgency to this book that didn’t really feel like it translated to the long descriptions of her driving the car along deserted roads, or walking with Harry. I felt that some parts of the book really dragged, while others rushed by too fast.

I did feel bad for poor Harry, who was wrenched from everything he knew and was thrust into a complete unknown. His reactions to being carried out of his safe space made a whole lot of sense, especially when he ended up getting motion sick from being in the car for the first time. The poor kid was actually pretty resilient, compared to how a lot of children his age would be.

I did feel that this book was pretty hopeless and depressing to read. It wasn’t easy…but that was the whole point of the book, really. It wasn’t a nice, easy read because the world the characters were in wasn’t a nice or an easy one. I just kind of wish that the multiple flashbacks hadn’t been included, as they pulled me out of the book.

On the whole, I felt this book was worth reading…but it isn’t something I would really want to read again. I recommend giving it a try, at least.

Marvel Platinum: The Definitive Doctor Strange

Posted by cat2002116 on June 16, 2024
Posted in: comic books, Marvel, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

After watching Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, Stephen Strange became my third favourite Marvel character…replacing Steve, who dropped down after the events of Endgame. And after one of my brothers got me this comic book for Christmas last year, I definitely wanted to read this. It just took me a little while to start reading.

Much like Iron Man and Captain America, I’m very familiar with Stephen Strange’s origin story. An arrogant surgeon who loses the use of his hands, he ends up learning magic during his quest to somehow restore the use of his hands.

Unlike the MCU, in the comics, Stephen and Mordo are rivals pretty much from the start. Though none of the comics in this collection show their initial meeting, Mordo is well established as someone who hates Stephen and wants to kill him and the Ancient One, so that he’s the strongest magic user left. I will say that this hatred for both his fellow apprentice and his mentor does confuse me a little, as why did he even become the Ancient One’s apprentice if his only goal is to kill the older man?

The first two comics didn’t really feel as tense as the later ones did, as Mordo felt very much like a minor annoyance rather than an outright threat. Stephen seems to find it really easy to outwit Mordo and beat him in both of the storylines.

The third comic in this collection definitely ups the stakes a bit. Compared to Mordo, Shuma-Gorath is a much bigger threat…especially as it’s revealed that it needs to get to Earth through the Ancient One. I found it interesting that Stephen was faced with the moral dilemma of having to take a life in order to save the rest of the world, especially as it went against his vow to never take a life. I would have liked to see a bit more of his feelings after doing so. While the Ancient One’s soul was free to become part of the bigger universe, I still feel like the act of taking a life should have had more of an impact on Stephen. Maybe it does in future comics. I don’t know.

Weep for the Soul of Man was definitely an intense read, where it actually seemed like Mordo’s nefarious scheme succeeded. While I didn’t really know the characters he was about to sacrifice, I still found myself empathising with their plight. It was interesting to see Man-Thing, who’s a character from the comics I’m not really familiar with. I definitely felt bad for the fact that he’d awoken Man-Thing’s human self…and that Stephen couldn’t reverse what had turned Sallis into Man-Thing. While he did return Man-Thing to a mindless state, I definitely felt like that was a poor way to repay Man-Thing for what he’d done…though Stephen seemed to feel that way as well.

I did find it a really intriguing storyline where Stephen had to give up his white magic, and pretty much everything about him, in order to fight Shuma-Gorath again. I thought that taking Victoria’s power from her was really wrong, though. While it was obvious why he felt the need to do so, given the threat Shuma-Gorath was to the Earth, I think he definitely went against a huge part of his nature. Victoria did tell him she wanted to help, but she didn’t agree to him taking her power from her…and that definitely made me dislike Stephen a bit in this storyline. In this instance, I really don’t think the ends justified the means…and I would have really liked to see some of the aftermath of what he did in order to fight Shuma-Gorath.

I always like redemption arc storylines, so seeing Mordo get one was really good. Originally, upon finding out that Mordo’s cancer had been transferred to Stephen, I assumed that Mordo’s apology and plea for forgiveness was nothing more than a trick. However, when Mordo took the cancer back into himself and revealed that it had been his daughter who’d been responsible for the transferrance. While the storyline did have a sad ending, I felt that there was some hope in it, given that Mordo was able to rejoin the Ancient One’s spirit and Stephen asked him to save a place for him.

The penultimate comic in this collection involved the Fantastic Four…although I was surprised, and a little bit disappointed, to see that the blurb gave away what happened in that comic. As soon as I started reading, it was exactly what had been summarised, so there was no surprise or tension when it turned out that Agatha Harkness was helping the Salem Seven, or that the spell was actually intended to unleash Shuma-Gorath. Reed Richards actually seemed to realise that something was wrong, but didn’t put a stop to the spell being read by Sue? Apart from that, though, I really enjoyed seeing the Fantastic Four…especially Johnny and Ben, as they’re two of my favourites. And I loved that Johnny was the only one who didn’t drink the tea, so was therefore the only one unaffected by losing his powers.

The final comic was the one I was looking forward to the most. The basic storyline involves a cosmic cube-twisted Steve Rogers, whose reality has been changed so that he’s been a HYDRA agent all along. I was a bit disappointed to see that Mordo was back as a bad guy, as I liked the way his storyline had been ended, but he did seem to give Stephen more of an enemy to fight than I’d really seen in the first two comics. I especially liked the DnD references in this comic, along with the fact that Wilson Fisk was helping Stephen, Jessica and Ben Urich. I loved seeing Ben Urich as an avenging angel and how he reacted to Wilson Fisk being willing to help them, despite still being a criminal/bad guy.

All told, I really enjoyed this collection. Reading these storylines made me want to seek out many of the other storylines, especially the final comic. I would definitely recommend reading this if you enjoy Marvel comics.

The Watchers

Posted by cat2002116 on June 15, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews, Supernatural. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I was definitely interested in seeing this moive when I saw it advertised at the cinema. The whole idea of a small group of people trapped in a small space, being watched by unseen creatures on the other side of a mirror, was one that immediately interested me.

The movie started out in a fairly similar way to most horror movies, with a man running through the forest, trying to escape or find his way out while being chased by an unseen creature. That opening scene ends with what was included in the trailer: with the man being dragged away by the same unseen creature that’s apparently been stalking him. Either way, he doesn’t really appear in the rest of the movie…although he is mentioned.

I found Mina a bit of a difficult character to really empathise with, as she was hiding who she was with various people even before she’s stranded in the forest. The start of the movie is a little slow-moving, but it moves a bit faster once Mina finds herself stranded in the forest.

While I did find the whole concept of being watched by strange, unseen entities to be really interesting, I did think that if I was in Mina’s position, I would have been asking a whole lot more questions. For instance, she doesn’t ask anything about this Professor that Daniel mentions. I found it very hard to believe that she wouldn’t have mentioned anything at all about this extra person who’s referenced, but isn’t actually there.

Madeline, Ciara and Daniel seem to have accepted the whole idea of being watched, but while Ciara mentions her husband has left to try and get help, she doesn’t actually seem worried about his safety at all. It’s a little hard to really feel like there’s much danger in this movie, as apart from the opening scene and a few instances where the watchers are banging on the cabin, unable to get in, the characters always seem able to escape danger. It’s also not very clear what the consequences for breaking these ‘rules’ are, apart from the watchers reacting badly by banging and trying to get in. Have they killed anyone apart from the guy at the beginning, who none of them seem worried about? Again, I feel like this is a question Mina should have asked. What happens if we break the rules? When she inevitably turned her back on the mirror, I was expecting something to happen…but unfortunately, nothing did.

I also found that this movie contradicted itself towards the end. I had the feeling it was more about bringing in a twist than making sure it made sense with what had been established before. There were very few clues pointing towards the twist at the end.

On the whole, I think there was a lot of potential in this movie. Sadly, though, it just fell short of what it could have been.

Sting

Posted by cat2002116 on June 9, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

This was another movie that was pretty much what it said on the tin…but actually, as I was expecting it to be a giant monster movie, it was more enjoyable than I was initially expecting.

The movie starts with an old woman, Helga, hearing sounds in her walls and calling a pest control company. The man she speaks to, Frank, recognises her apartment as one he’s already visited, and asks her about her parrot…to which she responds that she doesn’t own a parrot, and immediately hangs up. As Helga seems to suffer from a form of dementia, though, she forgets that she’s called him…and, indeed, forgets that she’s called another pest company, who were there before Frank was.

After Frank is attacked and dragged away by a giant mutant spider, the movie goes back a few days; to a young girl, Charlotte, who breaks into her grandmother’s storage room and finds a tiny spider in a dollhouse. Unlike me, who’d be running screaming in the opposite direction at a spider like that, Charlotte smuggles the arachnid out of the storage room and decides to keep it as a pet, eventually feeding it enough that it grows at a rapid pace.

I don’t like spiders at all, so most of this movie had me cringing whenever the spider was shown on screen, and that was even before the beast got loose and started terrorising the residents of the apartment building! I did feel that the strongest part of this movie was the relationship between Charlotte and her family. I had some empathy towards Ethan, although his decision to change Charlotte’s artwork made him dip a lot in my estimation. Yes, it’s later revealed that Charlotte’s biological father is a jerk who abandoned her…but speaking as a child of divorced parents, I still loved my mother, despite her flaws. (I obviously love my father, too, but I lived with him, so it was a little different). So yeah, I hd some mixed feelings about Charlotte’s relationship with her step father. I will be honest and say that I didn’t really like her mother, though. Especially when Heather told Ethan she ‘needed that’ about seeing Charlotte and Ethan sitting together while he drew the comics.  At that point, she came across as unbelievably selfish for assuming that the sweet moment betwen Ethan and Charlotte was purely for her benefit.

I liked the fact that Charlotte was particularly resourceful in this movie, and there were some really good elements of foreshadowing throughout. I also really liked Frank, the man who worked in pest control. His presence added some much needed humour into the relatively dark moments during the movie.

I did actually enjoy this movie, all told. It was exactly what it said on the tin, but the characters were ones I liked and cared about, and there were some nice breaks in the tension at times. It’d be interesting to see a sequel to the movie, as I definitely think Charlotte is someone who could grow up to be extremely resourceful/successful…and what if the spider’s mother put in an appearance in the future?

So yeah. Good horror movie. Fairly simple and easy to watch. Would recommend if you’re on the fence about it.

Cold People

Posted by cat2002116 on June 9, 2024
Posted in: Apocalyptic, Books, End of The World Book Reading Club, Reviews, Science Fiction. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I was very excited to read this book, as I joined The End of the World Book Reading Club, and this was my first box with the book and several small gifts to open throughout the book…all of which I thought was a pretty awesome idea.

When I read the blurb on the back of the book, I was immediately intrigued. The idea of an alien invasion and people having to travel to Antarctica to survive immediately caught my attention…and I actually really liked the beginning of the book. I really enjoyed viewing the first sighting of Antarctica through the eyes of Ui, a man from two thousand years ago with no knowledge of science, or technology. I especially liked the visual of the ice blocks as clouds, either falling from the sky into the water, or rising up from the water to become clouds in the sky.

I will say that I’m not really a fan of the instant love connection between two characters, so seeing that between Atto and Liza kind of put me off reading the book a bit. I did like the sudden, abrupt chaos of the alien ships appearing in the sky and giving the deadline to humans about thirty days to reach Antarctica. That definitely gave an air of urgency to the book…and as people attempted to flee the city and get to the airports, I could definitely feel the panic and that sense of trying to save your own family, with nothing left to help any of the others who were in the same, or perhaps worse, situations.

I liked the whole buildup of humans trying to reach Antarctica before the deadline given by the aliens, but I was extremely disappointed by the abrupt timeskip of twenty years once they actually got there. Learning, adapting and surviving to life in the extreme cold would have been a really good way of worldbuilding and character development…and I kind of felt robbed of that by the timeskip. I also found it really hard to have characters introduced in the present day, only to abruptly skip back twenty years to how they handled the alien invasion and got to Antartica. There was a lot of jumping backwards and forwards that made the book hard to read at times.

I also think that the book could have done without the focus on the science experiments. It felt like there were two different ideas/plots going on in this book, but neither were given enough room to develop properly.

On the whole, I couldn’t really engage with this book as much as I would have liked to. There was too much going on and too many random jumps for characters I didn’t get the chance to know. I will say that I loved the gifts I received with the book, and I definitely plan to continue the subscription as long as I can afford to. Hopefully, I will enjoy the next book better!

The Strangers Chapter 1

Posted by cat2002116 on June 9, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Okay, so…horror movie. No one’s surprised, right? I think by now, the majority of people who know me, or follow my blog, know that horror movies are my bread and butter of film genre.

I watched the first Strangers movie, which was actually really creepy and did really well at having the masked strangers just appear in the house, without drawing any attention to that. I felt that this movie tried to do something very similar, but unfortunately, it didn’t do anything different to the original home invasion movie, so there was very little to make it stand out from its predecessor.

I did like Ryan and Maya’s relationship, although a lot of the movie very much felt like a stereotypical horror where the main characters end up in a small town that just has a weird, almost creepy feel to it. Honestly, if I was in that position, I wouldn’t be staying in an airbnb right in the middle of the woods. And the moment someone started banging on the door, I would have been calling the police…because no one who has good intentions is going to be out in the middle of the woods at that time of night.

I originally thought that Ryan having asthma and needing to use an inhaler was a nice touch…but it didn’t really seem to have an impact on him throughout the movie. Okay, there was one cool scene where he used a bottle to breathe into and then used that sound to get the upper hand…but unfortunately, it was fairly obvious how the movie was going to end. Even if I hadn’t seen the previous movies in the franchise, the trailer gave away a lot of what was going to happen throughout.

I was somewhat disappointed because I thought the movie was going to show a bit more about the Strangers and how they interacted with each other. Yes, the scariest thing about them is that there’s no reason why they’re going on killing sprees, but I do think there could have been subtle ways for their personalities to come through.

On the whole, I really don’t think there was much to make this movie stand out from the previous two in the franchise. Most of what happened in the movie had already been done in the previous two movies, and it was fairly obvious where the movie was going. I can’t really say it added a whole lot to the franchise, to be honest.

Passenger List Season Two

Posted by cat2002116 on June 8, 2024
Posted in: Podcast, Reviews, Thriller. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I’ll preface this review by saying that I don’t tend to listen to podcasts. I don’t tend to listen to audiobooks, either, to be completely honest; mostly because I can read books faster than listen to them, and audiobooks always make me think of being at school and being forced to read at the speed of everyone in the class, which was always ridiculously slow.

I can’t say I’m planning on listening to audiobooks anytime soon, but I’m definitely a convert to podcasts; or the fictional ones, anyway. I binge…listened?…to the whole of Passenger List season two in one day, and while it wasn’t what a comment I read said it was (a woman having creepy messages left on her answerphone), it was pretty engaging and drew me in really well anyway.

I just listened to season two, as I hadn’t realised season one was on the same page (just further down), but I don’t think you need to have listened to season one to understand what’s going on. I was able to follow the plot pretty well, as the first season had been about the disappearance of a plane, flight 702…while the second season involved debris from the wreckage being found, and almost everyone believing the passengers, pilot and crew on board to be dead. I say almost everyone, because Kaitlin Le…the sister of one of the passengers on board that ill-fated flight…receives a phone call that appears to be from her presumed-dead brother, Conor. And immediately after that phone call, she disappears without a trace.

After the initial episode, the focus switched to Rory, a lawyer representing the families of those supposedly killed in the crash of flight 702. What seems like a fairly straightforward wrongful death claim takes a vastly different turn when Rory discovers a group of family members who claim to have seen videos and received calls from the so-called deceased passengers of Flight 702.

As I was listening to this series, I had a huge amount of questions and theories. There were a couple of nice interactive touches through the website, although I would have liked to see a bit more detail. For instance, there was a computer game that was developed by one of the characters that linked in really nicely with one of the episodes. However, the password that needed to be entered wasn’t mentioned in the episode itself, or in the transcript…or, at least, not that I could find. And I found it very hard to reach the point in the game that was so integral to the episode. So it was a really good idea, but the game didn’t really go anywhere.

Kaitlin was definitely my favourite character in this series, although I did really like most of the other characters. I especially liked the parental relationship that seemed to form between Rory and her, and Jim and her. That was a really nice touch, especially as it seemed Kaitlin didn’t have the best relationship with her actual parents.

I can’t really comment on the visuals of this series, as it was a podcast. However, for the most part, the sounds worked really well to indicate what was going on. However, I couldn’t always tell the difference in tones with some of the minor characters, so I wasn’t always aware of who was talking. Still, the sounds did a really good job of immersing me into the story…and really helped me to listen through to the end.

I was a bit disappointed that there were some plotlines that didn’t really seem to go anywhere, like the people who were initially following Kaitlin. I couldn’t tell who they were there and they didn’t seem to really crop up again. Also, there were some parts where it was harder to suspend my disbelief, such as the passengers calling their family members. Without going into too much detail, what was being said in those phone calls really didn’t match how the series ended. However, those were only minor problems and didn’t really detract from my enjoyment of the series as a whole.

I will say that I hope there’s eventually a season three of this series, as it ends on something of a cliffhanger. But it also seems to have been greenlighted for a TV series, so…I really hope that does go ahead, as it would be great to see this series further expanded.

I definitely recommend listening to this if you enjoy podcasts/audiobooks. And even if you don’t, like me, I think you’ll still get a lot of enjoyment out of this. It’s honestly a really great thriller podcast, with characters I truly cared about and a moment right at the end where I literally shouted, “YES!” Fortunately, this was not in public, so no one else gave me any odd looks.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Posted by cat2002116 on June 8, 2024
Posted in: Movies, Reviews, Science Fiction. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I watched the previous Planet of the Apes movies, so when I saw this one advertised, I was immediately intrigued by the trailer. I have to say, though, that the impression I got from the trailer was not, in fact, what happened in the movie, which I assumed was about a human (or an ‘Echo’) randomly gaining intelligence/the ability to speak and being hunted by apes.

I really liked Noa’s character. It was really easy to care about him and him trying to get an eagle egg, so as to prove himself to his father. I felt so much for him when the egg he’d managed to collect was broken. While it might have been a good thing to an extent, considering he had to leave his village to get another egg and avoided being involved in the main attack, I really felt for him after he’d worked so hard to get the egg in the first place.

One thing I found really interesting about this movie was how much Caesar’s teachings had been changed/twisted by the time Noa’s generation had reached their majority. Noa and his clan had no idea about Caesar, but the ape that Noa meets later, Raka, informs him about Caesar’s teachings…but also gets certain aspects of them wrong, especially since Nova was only the name of one human the apes adopted into their tribe, and not what they called every human they came across.

Speaking of the humans, or the Echoes, it was interesting to see them ‘in the wild’, and acting like…well, like animals. I knew they were going that way, after the last movie in this franchise, but it was still difficult to watch a once intelligent species having sunk so low. I could empathise with Mae when she sees the humans at the watering hole…but that was maybe the only time I could, as I didn’t really find her a relatable or a likable character for most of the movie. While she did ally with some of the apes, it was very obvious that she was following her own agenda…and by the end of the movie, I didn’t like her at all.

I was definitely able to empathise more with Noa’s journey to find his clan and his own purpose than with the plight of the humans in this movie. I think that Mae’s motivations could have been better explored, making her a more sympathetic character; as it stands at the moment, I was definitely more engaged with the plight of the apes than the plight of the humans.

If you enjoyed the previous Planet of the Apes movies, you’ll probably enjoy this movie as well. It definitely focuses more on the apes than on humanity, even if the ending does set it up for humans to play a bigger role in the next movie/s.