Directed by Wes Ball, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes apes almost every action movie ever made, except for ‘Planet of the Apes’ of course.
I think it’s interesting how Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes adeptly turns one of its biggest weaknesses into a surprisingly potent strength. Well, two weaknesses. First, there’s its inherent barrier to entry, in that this is the fourth movie in a prequel/reboot franchise based on several other movies that kicked off almost 60 years ago. And the second weakness is how devoted the previous three films were to a central protagonist who is long gone.
That said, many of us still have lingering questions about what truly bridges the (rest of the) gap between Rise of the Planet of the Apes in 2011 and Franklin J. Schaffner’s original Planet of the Apes in 1968. Some of us don’t even want to know and to let War of the Planet of the Apes be the end of the sentence. But here comes Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes from Wes Ball, the guy who made those Maze Runner movies most people unfortunately forgot about.
Oh right, the whole weakness thing. Turns out that you can distill the plot of those initial prequel movies in just a paragraph or two without losing your audience. A virus broke out and made apes smarter, but humans dumber, effectively swapping their dominant roles on the planet. Done, dusted. And Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes picks up hundreds of years later with a brand new character, a young ape named Noa (played by Owen Teague using the franchise’s consistently impressive motion capture technology). He doesn’t know anything about what happened in those other movies, so if you’re an audience member coming into the movie fresh, you’re no better off than the protagonist, and that dynamic pretty much translates.
Apes together wrong.
Eventually, Noa does get chunks of the Planet of the Apes lore fed to him through allies and enemies alike. He’s part of a peaceful clan of apes who raise eagles, but they’re attacked by a much larger, warring clan looking to enslave weaker ones into forced labor. Noa evades capture, however, and embarks on a classic coming-of-age adventure that apes plenty of other films (sorry) such as The Good Dinosaur, Avatar (both Airbender and the James Cameron movies, somehow), and Star Wars. With just the tiniest dose of cynical post-apocalypse nihilism found in the Terminator franchise.
In his quest to free his clan from an evil ape calling himself “Caesar,” Noa encounters a wise order of the white lotus-esque ape named Raka (Peter Macon) and a smarter-than-she-seems human played by Freya Allen. This odd bunch bonds over their similarly bleak circumstances and varying motivations, with Raka insisting that the world continue to pass on the legend of the real, “decent” Caesar by pushing back against charlatans thirsting for power. It’s a thrilling adventure, to be certain, with plenty of visceral action and impressive set pieces bolstered by restrained digital effects and practical filmmaking that do a lot with very little.
The bottom line.
It’s no wonder Wes Ball was brought on for this project considering how he pulled off similar feats with Maze Runner, not to speak too rashly about a YA franchise that never quite got its full due. While Reeves created something ultimately meditative and thought-provoking with his still-bombastic trilogy closer (War for the Planet of the Apes is still probably one of the best of these movies, period), Ball sort of dumbs things down here with a more straightforward blockbuster ride that scratches its own head at the lore with a wink.
Well, it works as advertised, at least, and I’m surprisingly satisfied with how this is turning out. Because honestly we already got the cerebral take on these movies. I had no expectation whatsoever that we’d get more movies at all, so we’re in a “this might as well happen” scenario. If these are the movies we’re going to get, at least they’re still, I don’t know, fun? Exciting? Nice to look at? Occasionally humorous without trying too hard?
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes opens in theaters May 10. Watch the trailer here.
Images courtesy of 20th Century Studios. Read more articles by Jon Negroni here.
REVIEW RATING
-
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes - 7/10
7/10
Jon is one of the co-founders of InBetweenDrafts and our resident Podcast Editor. He hosts the podcasts Cinemaholics, Mad Men Men, Rookie Pirate Radio, and Fantasy Writing for Barbarians. He doesn’t sleep, essentially.
No Comments