Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes - Movie Review

 It's been a little under seven years since War for the Planet of the Apes was released, concluding a shockingly great trilogy that served as both a prequel to the original Planet of the Apes and a character study of Caesar, one of the best characters of the 2010s. The film gave a near perfect conclusion to Caesar's story, and truthfully I wouldn't have been upset if the franchise ended there. Luckily, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes distances itself enough to not diminish that great ending, and offers us a new look into the ape-led future of this version of Earth.

The film is set roughly 300 years after Caesar's death, following a new lead Noa, a member of a small colony of apes who specialize in raising eagles. When another group led by a tyrannical leader sacks their village and takes Noa's family and friends with them, he is set on a journey to free his people and learn about his species' history.

My biggest issue with this movie is that narratively I found it pretty unfocused. The audience is thrown into not only this new world but a very specific village within said world without taking the time to let us understand the dynamics at play, and once the main story of the film begins to play out it is often unclear where the story is actually going. There's the central plot of Noa trying to find his people but there's a lot of other elements to the story that just aren't woven in as well as I'd like, which ultimately leads to a pretty bloated runtime and some points where the film lulls. I did still enjoy the film quite a bit, but it's struggles narratively disappointed me especially compared to how invested I was in the story of the previous three films.

While I do have issues with the film narratively, there's still a ton I enjoyed. The film tackles Caesar's legacy in a very interesting way, showing how some have hardly even heard of him, some still hold on to his beliefs, and some have twisted his beliefs to benefit themselves. The main villain even proclaims himself as Proximus Caesar, and he uses Caesar's words to justify his tyrannical actions. I also enjoyed seeing the evolution of the apes. Over the course of the previous three films we saw the apes beginning to learn how to speak, but here they have had several generations to evolve and are much closer to the apes we see in the original 1968 film, speaking almost as though they were human.

Visually the film is a marvel. I tend to be against the heavy use of CGI, but that's largely because I think it often looks too artificial, especially in recent superhero movies. Everything here looks fantastic. Ever since Rise of the Planet of the Apes this franchise has been among the best uses of CGI, and this is no different as the VFX team fully brings to life an entire cast of characters through beautiful, textured, and realistic effects. I also really loved the sets. I'm assuming a lot of the dystopian scenery is digital, but all the sets that were built do a great job of crafting this world where nature has taken over human areas. The music is also pretty strong, not as great as Michael Giacchino's work on the previous films but still very strong. The performances are also quite good, again not living up to the previous entries, but Owen Teague does a great job as Noa and Kevin Durand is fantastic as Proximus. In terms of the human characters, William H. Macy didn't do much for me, but Freya Allan gave a surprise great performance.

All in all, this had a lot to live up to, and while it never hits the highs of the previous films, I still enjoyed it. That runtime is definitely bloated by an unfocused script, but I appreciated the ideas explored here, and the franchise really starting to lead into the original film is something I had a lot of fun with.