Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Written by Cameron Geiser
Having missed the Maze Runner trilogy of films from the last decade I had no baggage or expectations with regard to director Wes Ball's abilities going into Kingdom of The Planet of The Apes. Now having seen the film, I have to say, I am impressed. As a fan of not only the Caesar trilogy of Apes films recently, but also the five original films from the late 1960s and 1970s, I wasn't immediately onboard with another film after the surprisingly phenomenal trilogy still feeling fresh in my mind. It felt as though there was no more story to tell after Caesar, but here the trick was to take a huge time jump away from that period in the Apes timeline. Set a few hundred years later we're introduced to Noa (Owen Teague) and his clan of peaceful Apes that specialize in training hawks. In the opening scene Noa and a few friends are out searching for Hawk eggs for an upcoming coming of age celebration where young Apes bond with the newly hatched eggs. It's a fairly thrilling sequence and one that gave me hope going into the rest of the film.
Given that the main character is named Noa I immediately noted that because you can bet they're gonna put that Ape on a boat, survive a flood, or a cataclysm of some sort. And they did all three of those things, just not in the ways I anticipated. Anyways, things go awry when a roving pack of Gorillas with tasers attack Noa's village and ransack the place- in the name of Caesar? This prods Noa to rescue anyone he can as he stalks the trail of his kidnapped family. This leads him to my favorite character of the film, Raka (Peter Macon). Raka, one of the series' prerequisite peaceful Orangutans, is an acolyte of Caesar as well, but he preaches the peaceful notions of Caesar's ideology. This is one of the more interesting parts of this film, that Caesar still has an impact in Ape society and how his teachings have been interpreted in more ways than one. Eventually the journey leads Noa to the realm of Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), an egotistical Monkey King that rules with an iron fist.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes kicks off a new trilogy with questions, answers, and thrilling action.
Of course, humans are still involved with the narrative to some degree, but there were some curious developments. Nova (Freya Allan) is the main human character, though we do get an entertaining side character played with a sly wit by William H. Macy. Nova initially follows Noa and Raka (though her appearance in Noa's village did spark the story's initiative) as her importance to the story is slowly revealed. If I'm being honest with you, Nova and the Human elements of the film are truly the only questionable things with the movie- but only in a couple of ways. Mainly it's that Nova feels a little too modern in costume and hair and make up. There's also some spoiler-y questions I have about things that happen in the third act, but truly these are small nitpicks when compared to the movie as a whole.
Something I noticed throughout the film was a consistent level of effort in crafting immersive sequences of tension, danger, discovery, and mystery of the unknown. I also appreciated the consistent character evolution where the story is moved by thoughtful character beats over nonsensical plot machinations. These things, and the sweaty palm anxiety from the opening climb sequence, do give me hope as Wes Ball has been attached to direct the live action film adaptation of popular video game franchise The Legend of Zelda. I can see why, his skills do seem transferable to what that adaptation would need. Kingdom of The Planet of The Apes is the proper beginning of Summer 2024, a big sci-fi adventure with heart and thrills! It's certainly worth a trip to the theater.
Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.