For those of you deciding to catch up on summer blockbusters, here’s a pro tip: Skip Valerian and head to War for the Planet of the Apes, the third in a series of dramatic action films that revives the camp film series from the late ’60s and ’70s. War is perhaps the best of the three—which isn’t to say Rise of the Planet of the Apes wasn’t among the best big-budget action films of the past decade—thanks in no small part to the performance of Andy Serkis, who plays Caesar, the leader of the not-so-primal primates.
“Plays” is a controversial word here—although there’s many who think it should not be—because Caesar’s body and facial expressions are enhanced by digital animation. And yet underneath—literally underneath: he wears a special body suit to play out his scenes with his fellow actors on set—there is Serkis. The actor, who portrayed Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, as well as the titular ape in King Kong, commits to the kind of performance that initiated this conversation back when Peter Jackson brought him away from the green screen and onto the set of of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring back before that film’s release in 2001, and has earned him special praise from critics this time around.
“Andy Serkis’s performance as Caesar is one of the marvels of modern screen acting,” wrote A.O. Scott in the New York Times earlier this month. He went on to say that Serkis’s portrayal of Caesar is “a role that continues to redefine screen acting in the digital age. His facial expressions and body language are so evocatively and precisely rendered that it is impossible to say where his art ends and the exquisite artifice of Weta Digital, the special effects company, begins.”
The argument goes like this: If we (not to mention the top critics) can’t tell where Serkis’s performance—everything from his timing, delivery of lines, facial expressions, business, and reactions to other actors—begins and the digital part ends, how is it any different than when Heath Ledger was leveled with makeup and scars in to become the Joker in The Dark Knight? Where do we, and the Academy, draw that line?
Since the movie dropped on July 14, headlines like, “Will War for the Planet of the Apes give Andy Serkis the acting cred he deserves?” and “When is Andy Serkis going to get awards, respect for his performances?” have appeared in mainstream outlets like the Washington Post and USA Today, respectively. In the latter piece, the Deadline Hollywood columnist Pete Hammond seemed to do everything but shake Oscar by his lapels: “This is a quintessential, almost Shakespearean performance. Does he deserve to be nominated? Absolutely! Will he? I won’t take that to the bank. But hope springs eternal.” Scott Feinberg, who writes about awards for The Hollywood Reporter, wagged a different kind of finger at the Academy. In the USA Today piece he castigated them for something between stodginess, and a misdirected intimidation by automation (the idea that actors might be replaced by digital technology is about as likely as Hollywood voting for Trump). “They fear this is another step to not needing actors at all,” said Feinberg. “They don’t want to expedite the process by honoring it.”
Ultimately, recognizing Serkis might not just open the floodgates to what kind of performances Oscar deems worthy; it could call out the almost 90-year-old ceremony on just how behind the times it, and its categories are. Why, for example, are the acting performances of men and women in separate categories? Why are comedic performances not more seriously considered? It’s a little bit of a Pandora’s box. But unlike the addition of the Best Animated Feature category in 2001, acknowledging a motion-capture performance isn’t about Hollywood catching up to an entire category, it’s about technology changing an already existing one.
Common sense, not just the times, are calling on the Academy to give Serkis and his ilk a chance, if not their due. This is a situation where Oscar seems hopelessly behind. In fact, we shouldn’t even be clamoring for Serkis to get a Best Actor in a Leading Role nom. . . at this point we should be after his costar, Karin Konoval, to get a Best Supporting nom. To be fair, Caesar might have the biggest scenes, but it’s her sagely ape, Maurice, who steals the show.
The Trailer