Written by: Josh Friedman
Starring: Owen Teague, Freya Allan, Kevin Durand, Peter Macon, William H. Macy
Rating: [3.5/5]
No matter how clear a famous figure makes their message about what they teach while they’re alive, they have no control of how it gets interpreted and utilized in the future. Take the whole Christian faith and those who ardently practice it somehow act in ways in the name of a Lord who specifically spoke against those actions but ultimately it does not matter. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes utilizes this with the legacy of Caesar and how Earth looks with apes now having completely taken over.
Several generations following Caesar’s death, different clans have emerged as apes rule the Earth. Within one clan of apes, Noa (Owen Teague) seeks to participate in an important coming-of-age ceremony involving hatching a falcon egg, but his clan gets brutally attacked by a scavenging one, where many die and others get taken. Now with minimal allies around him, Noah must find the best way to free his people.
Following the tremendous success of the latest “Planet of the Apes” trilogy where we witness the rise of Caesar and what he manages to accomplish for the apes in a changing world we now see a very different planet Earth. No longer one dominated by humans but rather to the point where humans have mostly gone feral and resemble the capabilities of apes before the world flipped over. It completely flips the script based on what we last saw in the capability of humanity, and as Noa goes on this journey to free his people he learns much more about it.
As previously mentioned, by far the most intriguing element of this feature lies in the distorted vision these different ape clans have built for themselves and bastardizing the legacy of Caesar in doing so. This occurs with Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand) who leads a coastal clan of apes and essentially utilizes those he captures as slave labor for this ominous goal he seeks to achieve. The naming of this character really says it all in the way it emulates the Roman Empire in the structure, which all goes back to the ape from the most recent trilogy. Caesar always mentioned that apes were stronger together, but Proximus has his own way of interpreting it.
On Noa’s journey he meets Raka (Peter Macon) and it confirms once again that these films cannot go without a wise orangutan. He serves as a scholar of the works Caesar truly did and seeks to cut through the bastardization of the message as done by other clan leaders. They sure drew these parallels very clearly but he becomes Noa’s companion on this journey along with a young woman, Soona (Lydia Peckham), who represents what humanity has now become.
Keeping in tradition with all of the apes films, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes does a tremendous job with the motion capture as with each film they refine the process and make them look all the more realistic but also very expressive. We navigate through the pain of loss and joys of discovery for these characters as we continually learn more about what has happened in the generations since we last spent time in this world. Nothing about this world resembles the one dominated by humans and the consistent need to manufacture, thus creating a new world order that reveals some fascinating truths some want to uncover and others seek to keep hidden and possibly eradicated. Noa’s journey becomes one marred with pain, but with the possibility of rebuilding what was destroyed as the rules of the animal kingdom go in full effect with the way any clan of apes can have themselves completely taken over by another.
Yet another strong entry into a franchise that can currently do no wrong, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes serves the role of bringing us back into this world of apes, catching us up on what has happened, and also set up the issues that will dominate the films that will follow. The systems are now recalibrated as we know where the chess pieces are amongst the different ape clans and what lies ahead for humanity and their regression since the death of Caesar. Overall, a very entertaining film with all of the hallmarks of what makes these apes movies so fun to watch and this one measures up.
Films with Josh 
