kingdom of the planet of the apes

The resurgence of the Planet of the Apes franchise - some forty years after the original series of films ran their course (dutifully ignoring Tim Burton’s failed 2001 attempt) - has been rather remarkable. Rupert Wyatt’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes arrived in 2011 with minimal hype and became a breakout success at the box office. The reins then passed to Matt Reeves, who arguably engineered a Dark Knight-level creative jump with follow-up entries Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes - both massive, critically adored hits. The reservoir of good will for this particular series is almost unrivaled in today’s cinema. And yet… I find these movies a lot easier to admire than to love. For all the spectacularly cutting-edge motion capture tech on display, the hyper-realistic depiction of simian behavior feels, frankly, less fun than the distinctly 60s-flavored rubbery mask-like kitsch of the originals. 

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, directed by Wes Ball (the Maze Runner trilogy), picks up several centuries after the time of Caesar and introduces us to Noa (Owen Teague) - a young chimpanzee hunter whose clan is built, intriguingly, around the practice of falconry. Parallels to Luke Skywalker are almost certainly not incidental; Noa is a young would-be warrior who longs to prove himself, but remains largely sheltered within his clan’s way of life. But when his village is raided by soldiers who answer to the ape-lord Proximus, his requisite hero’s journey quickly takes shape. Embarking on a quest to rescue his people, he soon acquires an Obi-Wan Kenobi-type mentor (sort of) in the form of Raka (Peter Macon), an orangutan scholar who specializes in the teachings of Caesar… and crosses paths with Mae (Freya Allan), who - unlike the feral mutes they’re used to - reveals human intelligence and the capacity for speech. Allan, best known for playing Ciri on Netflix’s Witcher series, is almost preposterously photogenic. The makeup team smears dirt all over her face and the costume department dresses her in filthy rags and she still looks like she stepped directly out of an Estée Lauder ad. She’d be an obvious choice to play Helen of Troy if the opportunity presented itself - her green eyes are so hypnotic, it’s easy to imagine men going to war over them.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has a surprisingly slow and tedious build-up. It’s pushing 80 minutes before Noa even reaches Proximus’s coastal stronghold, where the enslaved are forced to chant “What a wonderful day!” like some sort of military state-sponsored mantra. Proximus (a bonobo) is played by Kevin Durand - not a household name, but a distinctive actor you’d likely recognize (he just appeared in Abigail, and has been on shows such as The Strain, Vikings, and Lost). The settlement is erected around an old military bunker and Proximus makes a massive spectacle of the daily attempts to breach its vault-like entrance. “In their time, humans were capable of many great things,” he says. “They could fly, like eagles fly. They could speak across oceans. But now, it is our time. We will learn, apes will learn. I will learn” - explaining why the bunker’s technological treasures are key to his vision. At one point, near the climax, Mae brandishes a firearm and we see his eyes widen, as if he’s been presented fire by Prometheus, the entire future of his kingdom laid out before him. But for all that Durand brings to the role, Proximus feels slightly undercooked. Frankly, so does the movie.​

To be clear, there are intriguing ideas here - none more so than the notion that apes and humans can never be truly aligned in purpose (the planet can only support one dominant species, after all)… which is teased out through Noa and Mae’s porcelain-fragile alliance. William H. Macy turns up as Proximus’s obsequious advisor on all things human history and preaches to Mae the value of subservience over fighting a battle that’s long since been lost. And not to force filter everything through the MAGA lens (I’m already exhausted just typing this), but there are obvious (and relevant) parallels to a charismatic autocrat deliberately twisting the teachings of a much-revered religious figure for personal gain. But these themes are predominately flirtations, nothing more. The climax makes for decent enough spectacle, but the ape-on-ape action never truly dazzles (to be honest, the allure is mostly lost on me - the evolution into heightened realism has stripped the franchise of any real giddy schlock value). At least Owen Teague holds his own mocap-wise as Noa - a not insignificant feat when you’re placed in the formidable shadow of Andy Serkis (some have claimed the motion capture effects are a cut below in this new film, even a touch soulless, but it doesn’t really feel that way). Noa gets his requisite hero beats and they land emotionally, for the most part. But Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is ultimately a rather lukewarm attempt to erect a fresh trilogy on the backside of the last trilogy. And with Fox already making noise about a subsequent trilogy (bringing the total number of films within the reboot series to nine), that’s way too much Apes for my appetite. I’d sooner let them have the planet than the cineplexes.