“Generations in the future following Caesar’s reign, apes are living harmoniously as the dominant species — and humans are living in the shadows. As a new tyrannical ape leader builds his empire, one young ape undertakes a harrowing journey that will cause him to question the past and make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.”
The original Planet of the Apes is one of my favorite science fiction films of all time. The notion of mankind coming face to face with the rise of a new dominant species on the planet, while becoming far inferior, is still a fascinating concept to this day, and the exploration of that concept spread throughout the five films in the original franchise, television show that it spawned, and now a new series of films is enough for any fan of the franchise and the genre itself to appreciate.
While the original film series, save for the last, follow a certain kind of timeline, albeit a kind of loop, this new film deviates from that mentality to further build upon what so many film series these days set to achieve: an expanded universe. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes takes place many decades since the rise of the apes and the times of Caesar. It follows an isolated tribe of apes who train and commune with eagles, and have adopted this as part of their heritage and way of life. Noa (Owen Teague) son of the chief of the clan, struggles to find his place amongst his father’s extreme expectations. The issues of daily life in their village are disrupted when another clan of apes, following the trail of a specific human, are led to their village by a piece of clothing left behind. Destroying everything and capturing most of the apes, Noa is left for dead in the burning ruins of his home. Desperate to find his clan and avenge what was taken from him, he discovers that the world outside his village is much more than he bargained for.
Since the ending of the newest trilogy, we knew there would be a departure from that storyline. This self-contained story works very well, and seeing how another group of apes chose to develop their own culture outside the main group of Caesar was interesting to see. One of the biggest questions I always had in the series was the type of civilizations going on outside the small area we see in the original films; do they follow the same set of beliefs and laws? What type of language did apes outside of North America develop? The questions are endless, and it seems we are in the midst of getting answers to those types of questions with this newest film, which is planned to continue in this Apes Universe. Despite all the different possibilities with the apes and their cultures, the human civilization struggling to hold on is still a part of the story, with a glimmer of hope revealed. If this departure from the Caesar storyline can tell us anything, it is that there are endless stories to be told, and they can serve as entertainment as well as a bleak look into the human condition and the finite dominance our race holds on the planet.
Sufficed to say, technology has come a long way since the 1960s and the original film, and where makeup and prosthetics once was the measure of believability, we allow green-screen motion capture technology to transform the actors into apes. The progress since the Rise of the Planet of the Apes can still be seen, as the apes look even more real, allowing the actors to entirely embody a different species in their performances. While Andy Serkis pretty much wrote the book on playing a CGI character, the actors that do transform themselves into apes do a fantastic job. I was particularly impressed with learning that Kevin Durand was the main antagonist, Proximus Caesar.
The one thing I will say that the film has at a disadvantage is the fact the previous trilogy was able to have so much character development spanned over the course of three films. While Noa is an admirable character and easy to identify with, there wasn’t much to set him apart from some of the characters we’ve seen in the past. Before actually seeing the film in theaters, I was under the impression that this was Caesar’s son, and it really could have been with a few minor tweaks, and if a character can be changed so easily, it just doesn’t seem as established and as impactful as it could have been. By the end of the film you are able to better see his development and he does change quite significantly, but at times I felt there was something missing that the Caesar character was able to capture that the Noa character wasn’t.
We were given a digital code to review this film, which is available now to rent/own on select streaming services. The physical copies of the film will be released in Blu-ray and 4k on August 27th, and if you saw the film in theaters and are interested in owning it, I would highly recommend waiting for the physical copy. While Disney is unfortunately known for their lackluster audio tracks, this one in particular is on the low side, which is one of the first aspects of the film to get toned down for limited bandwidth. (5.1 vs Atmos on the upcoming 4k disc).
