Visually impressive but lacking memorable action
Summary
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has interesting characters and explores mildly thought provoking themes, but there isn’t much in the way of action so you can probably wait for it to hit streaming.
Plot: The new Apes movie is set many years after the conclusion of 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes. Many ape societies have grown from when the Moses-like Caesar brought his people to an oasis, while humans have been reduced to a feral-like existence. Some ape groups have never heard of Caesar, while others have contorted his teaching to build burgeoning empires. In this setting, one ape leader begins to enslave other groups to find human technology, while another ape, who watched his clan be taken, embarks on a journey to find freedom. A young human woman becomes key to the latter’s quest, although she has plans of her own.
Review: Believe it or not I still have never seen the original Planet of the Apes movies; the first one I ever watched was the Tim Burton movie from 2001 and that didn’t exactly make me want to rush to view the others. I did enjoy Rise, Dawn and War, but there wasn’t much in the trailers for Kingdom of the that made it look like a must-see.
Taking place several generations after the events of War, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has a mostly engaging story and characters I genuinely cared about. This in itself is an impressive feat as these are motion capture apes and yet I was emotionally into their struggles.
This entry probably has the least action of the recent Apes movies and is more of an adventure as our hero Noa goes on a quest to rescue his tribe after they are taken by bigger, nastier apes. He soon discovers that everything he knows about the past isn’t what it seems, and he finds out more about the relationships between humans and apes.
The visual effects are incredible with mind boggling motion capture making the apes look almost photo realistic.
In the action department we get a couple of ape fights, an explosion, and some chases. It is a little ponderous at times and like practically every movie these days could have been shortened a little for pacing. I miss 90 minutes movies, and I really wish filmmakers would get back into it; not everything has to be over 2 hours in length, and this really felt it.
It explores themes of legacy and society, but there really isn’t that much that stands out about the film and I find with these recent Apes movies they all lack rewatchability, and I’ve only ever watched all of them once.
It does set up potential sequels (of course) and the next film could lead to a huge battle between humans and apes which could be interesting.
Overall, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes explores some interesting themes and promises a potentially huge conflict in the next movie, but on its own there isn’t much in the way of action and certainly nothing that really stands out. You can probably wait to watch it on Disney+.