There are few cultural institutions as hallowed as that of a great film trilogy: “Lord of the Rings,” “The Dark Knight” and “The Human Condition,” to name a few. The three-film format seems especially optimized for etching a film series into pop-culture stardom forever: get in, get out and call it quits before you can let a “Shrek Forever After”-sized mistake slip through the cracks.
The “Planet of the Apes” reboot trilogy released from 2011-2017 is one such shining example, a bombastic and narratively gripping saga that exemplifies the very best of 2010s blockbuster filmmaking. The three films reinvigorated a decades-old franchise, gave Andy Serkis a landmark role as Caesar and ensured that the iconography of an ape on horseback, wielding an assault rifle, would live on in the cultural ethos forever. In a decade marked by an unfiltered excess of franchise content, the “Planet of the Apes” series emerged as the most beloved it’d been since the 70s.
Rather than resting on its laurels, however, 20th Century Studios made the ambitious choice of barreling forth with “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” from director Wes Ball, continuing the rebooted story in the same era as that of the 1968 original film.
Set generations after Caesar’s death, “Kingdom” depicts a fully-fledged ape society, one that has — almost — forgotten its human-dominated past. The story follows a young ape named Noa (Owen Teague), a member of the reclusive Eagle clan who is forced to step up and save his people after the emergence of a new ape kingdom threatens the existence of both humans and apes.
There’s no arguing that “Kingdom” lowers itself to the conventions of a far more traditional action-blockbuster story than that of its predecessors. Much of the film’s first half is a small-scale adventure with Noa, an orangutan named Raka (Peter Macon) and a human girl, Mae (Freya Allan); the formidable villain of Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand) isn’t even shown until well after the halfway point.
It may sacrifice some of its science-fiction grandiosity for the sake of a simple, clean hero’s journey, but the decision to lower the stakes and temper audience expectations does an admirable job of setting the film apart from its predecessors, giving the story a progressive, optimistic tone while still establishing a bevy of interesting new conflicts.
“Kingdom” owes some of its identity to the 1968 film, but the handful of reused plot beats have new life breathed into them thanks to the stunning computer-generated imagery possible in 2024. The motion-capture technology used to capture the apes’ movement and expressions is as impressively lifelike as it was back in the 2010s, but the way that it’s utilized in the context of its setting — which was shot predominantly on location — is more often than not utterly jaw-dropping.
Teague gives a fantastic performance — so much so that I was actively startled upon seeing his human face in interview footage after the movie — and he quickly settles into his role as the heart of the film.
Allan is a surprise as well, providing the best human performance of the reboot series as her and Noa’s mutual understanding is mired by their conflicting desires, allowing for some truly gripping character drama in a series that had previously struggled to give Serkis a scene-stealing equal to measure up against.
Durand’s portrayal of Proximus is another excellent change of pace, with his weighty line deliveries — best exemplified in one scene where he spits out a chunky pronunciation of “eee-vole-ution” — making up for his lack of meaningful screen time on the whole.
To say that this represents the series’ turn towards becoming an “Avatar”-level blockbuster epic would not be far off the mark. Where the Caesar trilogy was noteworthy mainly in its willingness to break from the series’ tradition up to that point, “Kingdom” is fresh in its flexibility, offering a package that fans both old and new can enjoy, wrapped up by gorgeous CGI and a sweeping score.
More than that, the film displays a tangible understanding of what connects with viewers: when the characters experience a moment of triumph, their accomplishments are punctuated with a musical swell and the cymbal crash of gigantic waves; when they experience moments of defeat, the camera plummets downward with them.
Visual effects-heavy tentpole films are more dime-a-dozen than ever, yes, but it’s hard to understate just how wonderful it is to live in a world where a computer-generated monkey can make a person feel so deeply. Though it may not quite stand shoulder-to-shoulder with its predecessors yet, “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” is jam-packed with a love for the “Apes” series and blockbuster filmmaking as a whole, and it is the must-see movie of the year so far.
Kevin Lynch can be reached at lync1832@stthomas.edu.