★★★
Three hundred years have passed since our last visit to the Planet of the Apes. That’s what I felt. In real terms, it’s been seven years since Andy Serkis’ Caesar expired his mortal coil, just moments after his group of superior simians finally reached the Paradise Oasis. The legacy of Serkis – and his chimpanzee counterpart – weighs heavily on Kingdom, movie four in the reboot era. Coming from an already high bar, the progress is astonishing and the monkeys have never looked so beautiful or balanced. Humanity, for its part, has regressed. You decide which side of the screen.
The emphasis on character and the narrative preamble gives Kingdom a calmer pace than its Matt Reeves predecessors. This is the contribution of new director Wes Ball, who cut his dystopian teeth on the Maze runner the films and writer Josh Friedman, whose lessons in style over substance from James Cameron have clearly paid off. This isn’t to say that Kingdom is entirely weightless; no, the overriding feeling here is that the best is yet to come. Assuming success, Kingdom is the first in a new trilogy, each bridging the story from Franklin J. Schaffner’s original 1968 adaptation of Pierre Boulle’s novel. As things stand, November 25, 3978 is still a long way off.
Speech is no longer a rarity among apes – the “no!” » of Caesar is only a distant memory – but their civilization is simple. The point of reference, it seems, is paganism and indigenous culture. There are elders, hierarchies and rights of passage. Meanwhile, a lot of time and effort goes into training the eagles, an idea designed for effect rather than contextual logic. In Serkis’ absence, Owen Teague plays Noa, a wide-eyed chimpanzee driven by his thirst to impress and his faith in the system. It’s a knowingly familiar arc that intensifies Noa’s youthful uncertainty at the start of the film, only for a stoic resolve to descend through the experience beyond the camp. Caesar’s fondness for humanity arose from seeing the positive potential of the race. Kingdom wonders how different it might have been if the story had been played backwards.
Anyway, the Increase has War the formula remains largely intact here. There are good and bad monkeys; good humans and bad ones. According to the facts, the rotten ones are more visually ragged, while the decent ones have soulful eyes and gentle features. While Peter Macon proves an underutilized joy as Raka, a Bornean orangutan who lives by the old ways, Kevin Durand is utterly despicable as the tyrannical bonobo Proximus Caesar, whose interest for human history recalls a recent meme. It turns out that bonobo monarchs think about the Roman Empire even more than the average 21st century man.
As for the human contingent, Freya Allan makes for an intriguing performance as Mae. The development of his expected bond with Noa slowly proves to affect viewing, but it’s his impact on films two and three that really matters. Ball’s directive is to inject moral ambiguity into a dynamic that, until now, has been largely clear. To this end, Kingdom is about to overestimate its audience’s willingness to hold fire in hopes of livelier entries to come. It remains to be seen whether the dominant feeling that emerges from the film is that of a fervent desire to know more. That said, the appeal of the franchise cannot be denied. There is no other film in which monkeys can be seen riding horses.
Certainly, it’s the visuals of the piece that really set it apart. KingdomThe world of is a feast for the eyes – all lush green and vast – and exciting to explore. In the age of climate crises, there is a dark fascination with realizing an alternative future in which nature wins. What a world that would be. Give it another three hundred years, you never know.
T.S.