The latest instalment in the simian cinema canon is a weak follow-up to the narrative established in its predecessors, as monkey in-fighting develops between various tribes.
There was an amusing TikTok trend last year (bear with me) which revealed that men can’t stop thinking about the Roman Empire. It went like this: a woman would film herself asking a man in her life how often he thought about ancient Rome, and invariably the answer would be at least several times a week, sometimes even on a daily basis. Well fellas, turns out we’re not alone.
Several generations have passed since the fall of Caesar, and the legacy of this great imperial figure still looms large over all apekind. Just as before, however, not all apes believe they were created equal. The curiously Roman-coded dominion of the film’s title is ruled over by a tyrannical Bonobo named Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), who has taken the spirit of “Apes Together Strong” – Caesar’s emancipatory mantra – and twisted it in order to justify his autocratic, colonising regime.
Wearing a pointy crown and plated upper torso armour to signal his supremacy (and, for some reason, a loin cloth to cover his monkeyhood) Proximus Caesar is a cruel, Commodus-like leader who often appears more human than ape. Indeed, he is obsessed with obtaining human knowledge and has designs on plundering the technology they left behind with a view to accelerating the apes’ intellectual evolution. The question is, how is he going to get his stinking paws on it?
In a sort of reverse King Kong situation, Proximus Caesar has strategically established his coastal colony right next to a pair of enormous metal doors concealing a doomsday bunker carved into the cliffside – a mysterious rusted vestige of human civilization. Each day he orders the enslaved primates under his command to try and force the doors open using their collective might. And each day they come up short. What Proximus Caesar doesn’t know is that what lies on the other side of those doors has the power to bring him total ruin as well as absolute glory.
Before all that, we are introduced to Noa (Owen Teague), a headstrong chimp on the cusp of maturity whose quaint eagle-loving tribe (another bizarre allusion to the Romans) is brutally destroyed by Proximus Caesar right before his eyes. This sets Noa off on a long, perilous and at times tedious journey in search of any surviving members, over the course of which he encounters a scholarly orangutan named Raka (Peter Macon) and a young female human named Mae (Freya Allan) who holds a shocking secret.
Although Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes sets out its stall as an ape-on-ape epic, it is ultimately Mae who has the biggest bearing on the fates of Noa, Proximus Caesar and the rest of the apes. Which feels like a shame, not least because the best performers here are all in motion-capture roles. This is a rare case of a blockbuster where neither the director (Wes Ball) nor the main cast are given top or even second billing. (The only recognisable face in the film belongs to William H Macy, who pops up late on but is given very little to do.) The apes – and the dazzling VFX that bring them to life on screen – are the real stars. And yet because of how the story plays out, they are rather overshadowed in the end.
Another problem with this film is that it doesn’t have the kind of clear or nuanced narrative arc that made Caesar’s origin story so compelling. It is an A-to-B retread of familiar themes and visual motifs which can be traced all the way back to the original 1968 film. One that feels more like a soft reboot of the series than a progression of the hugely successful recent prequel trilogy.
‘Soft’ being the operative word: Kingdom certainly has its moments, but the rougher, darker edges of predecessors Dawn, Rise and War have been smoothed out, leaving us with an over-long, relatively low-stakes instalment sorely lacking in originality. If this is where the franchise is heading, then stop, I want to get off!
Little White Lies is committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them.
Published 9 May 2024
They came, I saw, they conquered.
Dazzling visual effects, but let down by an unimaginative script.
Fail, Caesar.
This latest instalment in the Apes franchise, about the preservation of humanity, lacks any genuine human characters.
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The thinking person’s blockbuster franchise returns with big emotions, incredible effects but very little to actually say.
Little White Lies was established in 2005 as a bi-monthly print magazine committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them. Combining cutting-edge design, illustration and journalism, we’ve been described as being “at the vanguard of the independent publishing movement.” Our reviews feature a unique tripartite ranking system that captures the different aspects of the movie-going experience. We believe in Truth & Movies.
