By Travis Johnson
There’s a self-imposed clock on Fox’s modern Apes franchise, and it’s this: at some point we have to drop the prefixes and just wind up at Planet of the Apes. Whether the series just stops when it synchs up with the original or we get a straight remake is another question (although this would be the most roundabout way to get to a remake in the history of cinema), but sooner or later that’s simply got to happen.
This new trailer seems to promise “sooner”, with Andy Serkis’ heroic chimp leader, Caesar, going toe to toe with Woody Harrelson’s genocidal military slaphead for hat seems like a do-or-die clash of the titans. Also, that little girl we see accompanying Caesar and his apes? Apparently that’s Nova, who was played by Linda Harrison as an adult in the original film, meaning the gape between this iteration of the series and that one is perhaps shorter than we realise. Or we’re reading too much into it – that has been known to happen.
War for the Planet of the Apes is in cinemas from July 13.
