Kingdom of the
Planet of the Apes

4 outta 5

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a solid entry in the series and a soft-reboot of the franchise, inasmuch that while it is canon to the last three movies, it jumps a few centuries to make the Caesar movies historical context. And in a series that is often guilty of remaking itself, there are more than a few beats in Kingdom that seem to be directly cribbed from previous instalments, especially War for the Planet of the Apes which is a little strange as it only came out in 2017. But the film looks spectacular and there’s a lot of ape action. It takes awhile to get rolling, but pretty much all Apes movies meander around for the first half until things go ballistic in the finale. For all the action, this is a fairly contemplative series, and the two different paths of human and ape evolution are interesting to witness.

Centuries after the death of the ape revolutionary, Caesar, apes rule the Earth and humans have been affected with an illness that turns them feral. At an ape colony is Noa (Owen Teague) and after discovering a wild human, his colony is attacked by a group of ruthless apes led by Proxima Caesar (Kevin Durand). Proxima views himself as an heir to Caesar’s legacy, but he has distorted the teachings of the great ape into something twisted as he acquires resources and ape slaves for himself. While trying to save his family, Noa runs into a wise ape, Raka (Peter Macon), who knows the history of the humans and apes and the true teachings of Caesar. Even more surprising, they run into the same wild human whom Raka names Nova (Freya Allan), as is the tradition of Caesar. The human appears mute like all others but, eventually, she reveals she can speak and goes by the name of Mae. They are all captured by Proxima and sent to be slaves at his encampment where he is trying to pry the doors off an ancient vault full of human weapons and secrets. Now Noa must free his family and try to stop Proxima from obtaining the secrets of the ancient and warlike human race.

One plot point that seems very familiar is the main baddie kidnapping apes and using them in his own construction project, which is a bit of an odd choice as it was literally the plot of the last movie from 2017. Also humans and apes working together for a greater cause for the species with some nefarious mad leader actors threatening to undermine their result was basically the plot (and done much better) in 2014’s Dawn with Koba as the main bad guy. This isn’t a remake as it is basically a sequel to the last three movies, but they probably could have not stuck as closely. Still, at least tonally and stylistically, this movie fits with the previous trilogy.

There was a huge point in War that the humans are all inevitably rendered mute and feral by the Simian Flu. This just turns out to be untrue in Kingdom where several humans can talk just fine like Mae. While this series still hasn’t shown the Statue of Liberty blowing up or has a time-traveling spaceman who might just look like Charlton Heston arriving, there are a few little nods to the original 1968 film. When the apes find a bunker of human gadgets, they also find a toy doll that says, “Mama!’ which is exactly like the same human toy doll found in the original film.

Teague’s Noa is fine as a generic hero who wants to get his family back, its just that coming off the incredible character arc and performance of Andy Serkis as Caesar just having some random ape learning about the secrets of the world isn’t as compelling. His buddy, Raka, is mostly there to tell Noa about the ancient history of the apes and then have a tragic exit to motive Noa. Proxima has turned Caesar’s teachings from centuries ago into a cult-like theme, trying to pass himself off as Caesar reborn and Durand is always good at menacing. There are a few times when Proxima can seem like he is being reasonable, but he will then turn deadly and violent without notice. Allan as Mae is basically a plot device mostly, but she has some interesting moments in the film’s finale. When captured she meets a human played by Willam H Macy who is a shifty traitor to humanity as he is working with the apes, and it is yet another one of Macy’s long line of shifty and cowardly characters which he excels at.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is very good at delivering a sense of scale. There’s a crazy visual of the apes trying to tear down the gateway that holds the human secrets, or when there is a giant flood that threatens to wipe out the entire encampment (but that was pretty much the climax of War but with snow). And when Proxima and his goons first raid Noa’s tribe, it comes off as very scary. Also the CGI to make the apes and their world come to life is fantastically well done and looks realistic. While the plot and characters aren’t as great as the previous movies, this is still a solid entry in the long running Apes series.