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The reboot trilogy to 'Planet of the Apes', 'Rise', 'Dawn' and 'War', are easily some of the most influential pieces of modern cinema. They pioneered motion capture, and with the character of Caesar becoming one of cinema's most celebrated characters, the trilogy is one of modern cinema's biggest masterpieces; I wake up every day furious they never took home the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Following up these phenomenal films was always going to be a tough feat, but now it's time to return to the 'Planet of the Apes' with 'Kingdom'.
'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' is set 300 years after Caesar's 'War'. Now humans have become feral and returned to a primitive state, becoming non-verbal, while apes rule over the land. Noa's (Owen Teague, 'IT', 'To Leslie') village gets attacked by Proximus, Caesar's (Kevin Durand, 'Abigail', 'Noah') army, and he is now set to avenge this. Proximus has taken Caesar's legacy and twisted it to attack other apes. Noa meets Raka (Peter Macon, TV's 'The Orville') who teaches him about Caesar's true ways and how humans and apes used to live together. The pair run into Mae (Freya Allan, Netflix's 'The Witcher') a human girl, and the trio team up to defeat Proximus' reign. But as they bond, the question arises: whose kingdom is it, humans or apes?
Without Caesar's presence, 'Kingdom' has a big hurdle to overcome before the plot even begins - and that's the characters. While none of them are as strong or as engaging as the previous cast, the film does have an engaging collection of characters. The real draw here is the effects and once again they are an absolute knockout. The apes look extremely realistic - it's another incredible feast of visuals.
The run time is the killer here, coming in at 145 minutes, making it the longest in the franchise. It takes a while to get going, and again because there is a whole new cast, it takes a while for you to connect with them. While no scene feels overly long, the focus is on the world over the characters, and because it's the first entry in a new series I wish we got more focus on the latter. The film also feels like it would have been stronger as a second entry; I wish we got a film that was purely apes ruling the world before we moved into the discovery that humans still exist.
Without Caesar's presence, 'Kingdom' has a big hurdle to overcome before the plot even begins - and that's the characters.
'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' was always going to be a very tough film to pull off after the breathtaking arc of the previous entries, but it's a worthy addition to the canon. Boosting stellar visual effects and incredible action set pieces once again, I wish there were a stronger focus on character, but I am very excited to see where these new apes take us in future instalments.
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