Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Review

In Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes, set 300 years after the rise of a species of intelligent apes and the collapse of human civilization, the planet has returned to a state of extreme Darwinian survivalism. Humans are rare; apes are now the dominant species. They have evolved to talk, handle tools, live in clans and engage in cultural rituals.

For Noa (Owen Teague), a young ape of the tree-dwelling Eagle clan, the world is a simian paradise. He knows little about the Echoes - humans who have lost the ability to speak and live beyond the valley. Lesser even about Proximus (Kevin Durand), a tyrannical Bonobo leader determined to unite all apes into a single kingdom that rules the planet. When masked Proximus' marauders attack Noa's tribe, kill his father, and capture his mother and friends Soona and Anaya and take them hostages, he is forced to reckon with the world beyond the valley. He sets off to rescue his tribe, learning the stories of his past, including of the great ape leader Caesar. And he glimpses the coming war for planetary dominance - although we have to wait for the sequel for this bit.

Wes Ball's movie that plays out at the end of the old world and the start of a new one, is allegorised in Noa's companions on the rescue mission: Raka, a sage orangutan, the last of the Caesar's Order Of Apes who follow the great ape's philosophy of strength, compassion and harmony; and Mae, a blue-eyed human girl who Noa rescues but who turns out to be a more inscrutable figure that she lets on. It is a post-apocalyptic setting where nature has chosen no clear winners yet, where talking apes and mute Homo sapiens are on equal ground. Promixus, believing that the artifacts that will tip the scales for the apes sit behind a manmade vault, works his apes like slaves to break into it.

Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes follows the Planet Of The Apes tradition of raising philosophical questions about the order of the world through the eyes of its protagonist - in this case, about Noa and his coming-of-age - but it does so much less effectively than its predecessors. Characters never fully embrace their complex interiority. Proximus, who has fashioned himself after Caesar, and twisted the creed Apes Stronger Together to forcefully integrate the diverse ape clans under his rule, is a brutish villain. There are allusions to his intelligence, of him learning from books, being read to from an opportunist human named Trevathan (William H Macy), but these interesting details get lost behind a shallow chest-thumping portrait.

Kingdom... noodles with its grand themes, only lightly touching upon them, leaving the film feeling more like a prologue to the real thing than the real thing. Noa and Proximus represent the two extreme interpretations of Caesar's simian mantra for survival: one advocating for communal harmony yet being naive, the other championing violent conquest. But the film skirts around these big ideas, as if the simple English in which the apes communicate might excuse its shallow dialogue. Nor does Owen Teague's performance as Noa inspire much connection to his character; certainly nothing like the miracles that Andy Serkis pulled off with Ape Caesar.

Several times, side characters are introduced into the narrative with specific, limited roles - Raka, the wise old ape offering Noa a brief history lesson; Soona, who easily confuses as Noa's sister but is actually his love interest; and Anaya, providing comedic relief - only to be swiftly discarded or overlooked.

Despite being one of the oldest running sci-fi series, Planet Of The Apes is still rich with narrative possibilities. Yet the ideas that Kingdom... teases are more intriguing than what it ultimately delivers. And part of the reason for this may be its over-reliance on personal storytelling. The sense of scale is missing: we never see what other other ape clans live like. Or what the Echo communities are like. While this approach aligns with the Planet Of The Apes formula, it feels a lot less ambitious, especially now that after all these years, the novelty of the hyperrealistic, articulate apes has started to fade.