Movie Review: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

I have to admit that I had never seen the Planet of the Apes reboot franchise that kicked off with 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, so I finally sat down and watched all 3 of them in advance of this movie’s release and was very happily surprised. They each far exceeded my expectations, and Matt Reeves’ 2014 installment, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is especially impressive, leaving me to think over its message for several hours afterward. So, I was fully primed for this movie by the time I got to the theater and was not disappointed by the experience.

Scripted by Josh Friedman (Apple TV+’s Foundation), this movie picks up several generations after the conclusion of War for the Planet of the Apes and introduces a new cast of simian characters. Chimpanzee Noa (Owen Teague) exists as part of a clan that has mastered the art of falconry and lives in large wooden towers. After he and his friends Anaya (Travis Jeffery) and Soona (Lydia Peckham) collect some eagle eggs for an upcoming ceremony in which they will become bonded to the birds inside, Noa encounters a now rare human woman (Freya Allan) stealing from their food stores, who smashes his egg and runs into the woods. With the ceremony set for the next day, Noa heads out on horseback to find another egg but instead discovers ape raiders with electric prods. He manages to escape their detection, but his horse does not, and the apes spur it to run home, leading them directly to his tribe’s village. The apes ransack it and take the population prisoner, setting Noa on a quest to free his clan.

All this time after Ceasar’s death, his name and teachings have been used to vastly different ends. Noa meets an orangutan named Raka (Peter Macon) who is the last of a group who sees his words as a call to peace and cooperation, but the leader of the apes, Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), uses his name as a way to exert authoritarian rule over others in a quest for ever-greater power. This leads to some of the film’s more chilling sequences as it calls out the similar ways that tyrants misuse religion in our current world, though it’s a shame the notion wasn’t examined a little more closely.

Wes Ball (The Maze Runner) takes over directing duties and proves himself up to the task. He doesn’t have Reeves’ eye for truly stunning set pieces but still offers up some striking visuals, particularly in the overgrown ruins of Los Angeles, and some genuinely thrilling action sequences. The finale especially should have audiences on the edge of their seats. This is clearly setting the stage for a new saga in the bigger Planet of the Apes story, and if the series continues to maintain the quality level it improbably has so far, I am here for it. Watching the prior installments isn’t necessary to enjoy this one, though it does help to fully flesh out the lore, and I can’t think of another modern blockbuster franchise as consistently intelligent and entertaining as this one, so they are worth the time anyway. ★★★★