Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes – REVIEW

I’m going to be totally honest when I say that I’m not exactly a Planet of the Apes connoisseur. I’ve seen the classic 1968 movie that kicked this whole thing off, along with the reboot trilogy of movies: Rise, Dawn, and War for the Planet of the Apes. All of them are pretty spectacular in their own right, especially that classic one, but right now, most people know the franchise for its last three movies, which are undoubtedly just spectacular. The groundwork was laid in Rise, which was directed by Rupert Wyatt, and while it’s a pretty good movie, Dawn and War, which were both directed by Matt Reeves, raised the bar. I’d even go as far to say that Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is one of the best blockbuster sequels ever made. That being said, I do have to add that the accomplishments of Dawn and War made Rise better in retrospect. Rise was fine, but going to it after seeing the other two movies after it just made it better in my eyes. Either way, that trilogy is over, and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a fresh start. For better or for worse, I think Kingdom has a lot packed into it.

Kingdom takes place three centuries after the conclusion of War for the Planet of the Apes, where Caesar has become something close to a myth. Apes are the dominant species now, with humans living in the shadows. A young chimpanzee named Noa must embark on a massive journey after his village is burned down and his clan taken by a tyrannical ape named Proximus, where his presence questions everything Noa stands for and could potentially redefine how apes and humans could co-exist on this new world. This is directed by Wes Ball, who’s only directed the Maze Runner trilogy up until now, alongside the upcoming live-action Legend of Zelda movie.

Without a doubt, a huge highlight of Kingdom is the visuals. While Andy Serkis himself wasn’t involved on-screen for this, he’s a pioneer in motion capture technology, and you can feel his influence spread across the whole film. A lot of the movie was filmed on location, and you can tell that as well. While there is full CG to fill out different locations, I could barely tell which ones were on location or digital, which is a huge compliment given how visual effects can be in Hollywood movies these days. That also can be said about the motion capture of the apes, which are genuinely stunning to look at. For the most part, it was reaching Avatar-levels of realism, simply just making me go “Yeah, those are just real monkeys.” at multiple moments. There’s really only one moment that I could tell was just fully CG in the whole movie when it came to character movements, but I forgive it because it’s just one small moment in a surprisingly massive movie.

I didn’t plan out this segway, but I have to get into some of the things I just didn’t like about Kingdom, and that for the most part, I thought it was really boring. Now, I know what you’re thinking, but let me walk you down this path: I think it was intentional. A lot of popular movies from the 1960s and 70s, including the original Planet of the Apes, have a much slower pace. They have patience to build up the story and when the time’s right, that big moment can have a huge impact. Just keeping it to this franchise, George Taylor yelling “Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!” and the twist ending I’m sure everyone knows about is a great example of this. Even in Rise when Caesar speaks for the first time, it’s a huge moment. I think Kingdom is going for this, and while I do think it’s very admirable to harken back to movies of that era where we really don’t have a bunch of those in the Hollywood blockbuster space right now, it just didn’t land for me. There was never that big moment that blew me away, and while there’s nothing wrong with a movie not having anything like that, it feels like it was building up to it, and when it got there, it didn’t have that emotional punch.

That being said, I really liked the acting overall. I enjoyed Owen Teague as Noa, a sort of clever/crafty main character that we don’t get often anymore. Peter Macon’s Raka was delightful to see on the screen, even if I didn’t care for how they wrapped up his story. However, Kevin Durand as Proximus was by far my favorite performance here. He’s not in it too much, not even appearing until the second half of the movie, but you could feel his presence throughout the movie once you first see him walk into the frame. I’m going into how I feel about the overall story now, which encompasses some of the other actors, and I have to admit, I just didn’t really care for it. The writer, Josh Friedman, has worked on quite a few things I’ve enjoyed: Avatar: The Way of Water, Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, the Snowpiercer series… he’s even attached to write the new Fantastic Four movie, along with being involved on future Avatar movies. That being said, I just didn’t care for the story here. I think the human elements should’ve been not included at all, or at least introduced at the very end as set-up for a potential sequel. It was by far the least interesting element in the movie to me in an admittedly very interesting premise. A couple factions of apes conflicting with each other could’ve made for an interesting movie, and I personally would’ve wanted that. It’s not to say that the acting from the human characters is bad. I enjoyed Freya Allen’s Nova, who’s basically one of the main characters, and William H. Macy’s appearance was a very interesting role that I didn’t expect at all here.





Overall, I think Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a bit of a mixed bag. There are undoubtedly interesting story elements and very good performances, but I guess I could say that this is a classic example of my expectations being subverted. Sure, this could be like Rise in that the potential sequels could be great enough that it makes Kingdom better, but going forward, I’m thinking that this could be approached like an anthology. Jumping across different times when the apes had Earth before Charlton Heston and his crew crash down could be cool to watch, especially with seeing the apes evolve over each movie. I’ll be perfectly okay with Kingdom if it ends up being a stand-alone thing, but enough good things in here could potentially lead to a better sequel down the line.


Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is currently playing in theaters and is reported to be hitting digital retailers at some point this summer. In terms of streaming, Kingdom will join every other Planet of the Apes movie on Hulu this fall.