"The Planet of the Apes" films are one of our oldest continuous film franchises, aside from one ill-fated Tim Burton reboot. I didn't expect another "Apes" movie after the Caesar trilogy wrapped up in 2017, but here we are seven years later, at the beginning of what I assume is a new trilogy, with a new cast of characters.
"Several generations" after the death of Caesar, apes are now the dominant life form on Earth, and humans are both scarce and increasingly unintelligent. Our new hero is a young chimpanzee named Noa (Owen Teague), who is part of a peaceful clan with a culture based around falconry. One day a group of violent apes, claiming allegiance to Caesar, attack and capture Noa's clan, including his friends Soona (Lydia Peckham) and Anaya (Travis Jeffrey), and his mother Dar (Sara Wiseman). Noa sets out on a journey to find them, soon joined by an orangutan named Rakka (Peter Macon) and a human, Nova (Freya Allen). They discover that their true enemy is a bonobo named Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), who is setting himself up as an emperor of the conquered apes.
Wes Ball of the "Maze Runner" movies takes the director's chair for a pretty simple, straightforward adventure movie. Humans have more of a presence here than I expected, but the main character is Noa. He's very bland, but he's got plenty of time to improve if he's going to be our hero over multiple movies. The worldbuilding is more interesting, doing a great job of introducing this new time period where the apes are beginning to put together early versions of their own civilizations, and there are still lingering signs of human society. This installment is all about bringing our main characters up to speed about the state of ape-human relations and showing how Caesar's teachings have spread. It's a strong starting point for more complex conflicts in future movies, but not very exciting as a stand-alone adventure.
The WETA effects work remains excellent, though not much personality comes through with the ape performances this time, aside from Proximus and Rakka. The character animation isn't quite as strong as what we saw in the earlier trilogy, but it's good enough to handle some diverting action sequences and occasional interactions with human actors. I like the way the story has developed, but I'm a little disappointed that "Kingdom" looks so much like the last two films of the Caesar trilogy. I was reminded very much of the "Avatar" movies, simply because of the visual language of non-human characters spending a lot of time in woodsy environments, and living in small tribes. Fortunately there's not too much by way of obvious callbacks and references - the aesthetics are familiar, but you won't see the Statue of Liberty poking out of the beach at any point.
The last few "Planet of the Apes" have been consistently well made and watchable, but haven't really stood out from the crowd. I suspect it's because the Caesar trilogy fit the mold of blockbuster spectacle a little too well, where I always liked the older "Apes" movies better for their wildly out-of-the-box ideas. The satire and cautionary messages have increasingly been backgrounded in favor of more action and spectacle. It's an unfortunate coincidence that "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" has so many story beats in common with "Furiosa," and doesn't do them nearly as well. Proximus, for example, is a promising, ambitious character. There was the opportunity to explore his co-option of Caesar's teachings and interest in human history in more depth, but in the end he's just another smarmy villain. A much more interesting conflict is set up by another character in "Kingdom," but I don't know if the writers intended it, and if they plan to take advantage of it.
I rewatched a couple of the older "Apes" movies recently, and marveled at how much they were able to tackle in those movies despite constantly declining budgets. The new movies all look great, but feel much more generic. The franchise continues to be popular so the filmmakers will have more opportunities to improve in the future. I appreciate that this series has lasted over a half century, adapted beautifully to improved effects technology, and still has plenty of stories to tell. They could be doing many things better though, and I hope they will as "Apes" goes forward.
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