Summary
The start of a new chapter is a worthy successor to the franchise legacy while pointing the way to the future.
The fourth film in the Planet of the Apes reboot follows the continuity established in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Yet as the first of the franchise released since Disney’s 2019 acquisition of Fox, and a surprising seven years since the release of War for the Planet of the Apes, director Wes Ball gives us an indication of where the future of the series is going. Judging from this entry, that direction is exciting.
Set many generations after the events of War, the exploits of Caesar have been forgotten by some apes and twisted by others. Apes are the dominant species on the planet and the majority of humans have now lost their ability to speak. Young chimpanzee Noa (in a motion-capture performance by Owen Teague), a member of a hunter tribe that raises eagle companions, is on the cusp of an initiation ritual when he encounters an aggressive clan of apes from the other side of the valley.
They are the minions of Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), a warlord who is intent on finding the weapons and technology left behind by humans. He believes that a human they’ve dubbed ‘Nova’ (Freya Allan) has the key to unlocking the past.
If War was somewhat caught between its larger story and its ties to the past, there’s certainly some of that at play in KINGDOM. Yet director Ball and writer Josh Friedman are painting on a much larger canvas this time. Opening shots of entire cities given over to nature let us know immediately that the world we are used to is buried, and now the franchise’s history to date is just the foundational building blocks for the future.
That idea of unearthing the past pervades the film. Orangutan Raka (Peter Macon) is a religious peacemaker who may be one of the last to remember the true nature of Caesar, or at least pieces of it. Proximus Caesar (literally ‘next Caesar’ or ‘near’ Caesar) consciously perverts his name like a zealot – making for an ideal if familiar style of villain – and the real world analogies are there for the taking. Trevathan (Wlliam H. Macy), a character we meet later in the film, emphatically tells ‘Nova’ that any attempt to restore the past is folly.
On a technical level, the character work just keeps getting better and better. If we thought that the digital expressiveness of the apes peaked with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, wait until you get a load of them speaking full sentences. The movement is fluid, and against the decaying backgrounds of a dead world, the action set-pieces are nothing short of epic. There’s some visual nods to the 1968 original, with a chase sequence that has visual fidelity with that film, but this is entirely its own barrel of monkeys.
Given that Disney’s current franchise motto seems to be that more is more, strip-mining some of its acquisitions for all their component parts, KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES naturally leaves the door open for future instalments. At the moment, all signs are pointing to it shooting for the stars – as long as it doesn’t fall into the trap of being too tied to its own legacy.
2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Wes Ball | WRITERS: Josh Friedman | CAST: Owen Teague, Freya Allan, Kevin Durand, Peter Macon, William H. Macy | DISTRIBUTOR: Disney (20th Century Studios) | RUNNING TIME: 145 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 9 May 2024 (Australia), 10 May 2024 (USA)
