Few movie franchises have had an appeal like The Planet Of The Apes, which has its loyal audiences. Since the first film in 1968, the series has spawned books, countless remakes and reboots, and even a television series. The latest in the series is Kingdom Of The Planet of The Apes.
Taking place many years after the death of Ceasar, the apes have several clans running the land. Noa is a chimp who finds his clan attacked and captured after he tries to redeem himself from a ritual of collecting eagle eggs when a human breaks his egg in a scuffle. He goes out for revenge and to rescue those left in his clan from the apes whose king is Proximus Ceasar. Noa meets up with an orangutang Raka, who preaches to him the teachings of Ceasar, and claims the apes are following the wrong ideas of Ceasar, skewing his teachings for their benefit.
The two encounter a human (played by Freya Allan), who Raka first names Nova, but after she speaks a while later, he tells them her name is Mae. They are later captured and sent to where Noa’s clan is imprisoned and have become slaves by Proximus to attempt to open a vault that has human technology. A human, Trevathan (played by Willam H. Macy), who is Proximus’ advisor of sorts, teaching the human ways to the apes, tries to teach Mae this world is the apes.
The story is simple, although the first twenty minutes were a little confusing with the eagle eggs, but it flows nicely once the journey starts. Allan is the best of the group, although the few human actors aren’t really the focus but more on the CG apes and chimps. The action and story are equally matched, without any slow parts that drag during the 145-minute run time. Like Godzilla, when it comes to the Ape movies, I like the rubber masks and the basic looks to them like in the older films; it’s hard to tell the chimps and apes apart with all their CG technology (one reason I can not watch The Transformer movies nowadays). The last few Ape films have been enjoyable, and if this is the start of another series, it will be interesting to see where it goes from here after the ending (NO SPOILERS).
The Kingdom Of The Planet of The Apes doesn’t break any new ground but adds action, emotion, and some well-placed bits of humor without coming off as cheesy. Very few movies these days satisfy me (with all the remakes and superhero films that I am worn out of), but this was an entertaining watch.
lancewrites: Reviews By Lance Lumley 