Review: 'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' is a slow burn, but it ignites into strong sci-fi and a solid allegory about power
It takes a while to grow on you, but “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” eventually emerges as an intelligent and moving entry in the durable science-fiction franchise.
The movie starts with the death of the character the franchise has been following for years, the ape leader Caesar. He’s given a funeral fit for a king, which is what he was when we saw him seven years ago, in “War for the Planet of the Apes.”
The movie then jumps forward “many generations later,” a title card tells us, and shows us a world where the skyscrapers of the human race are rusted and overgrown with vegetation — and the climbing grounds for the current inhabitants, the apes. We’re introduced to the Eagle Clan, whose members train birds of prey to serve them. For young adults, it has become a coming-of-age ritual to pilfer an egg from the eagles’ nests and care for the resulting chick. For Noa (performed by Owen Teague), there’s added pressure because his father is the clan’s “master of birds.”
But there are others who pose a danger to the Eagle Clan — namely the gorillas, and their ruler, Proximus (performed by Kevin Durand), who are working to enslave all the smaller apes for his grand purpose. When the gorillas attack and enslave the Eagle Clan, Noa vows to free them, and gets on his horse to find where Proximus’ forces have taken them.
On his journey, Noa makes two allies. One is Raka (performed by Peter Macon), an orangutan who is the last member of the Order of Caesar, who devoted their lives to the teaching of their great leader — and who believe tyrants like Proximus are misusing Caesar’s name in their quest for power. The other is a human woman (Freya Allan), who has been following Noa from a distance, apparently hungry and freezing.
Raka intuits that the woman — whom he calls Nova (“i call all of them Nova,” he says,a sly nod to the franchise’s history of women characters — is smarter than most humans, who mostly have turned mute and feral over the decades.
What happens from this point on is definitely in spoiler territory — and also genuinely cool, so I don’t want anyone to lose out on experiencing the surprise my fellow audience members felt watching it all unfold. I will say there’s an actor whose late-in-the-game appearance made me smile broadly.
Director Wes Ball (who made the three “Maze Runner” movies) and screenwriter Josh Friedman perform some stunning acts of world-building, creating varied ape communities in the ruins left behind by humanity. (Friedman knows a thing or two about world-building, having worked with James Cameron on the “Avatar” movies.) The performance-capture work is seamless, propelling the illusion that they got actual apes — not just computer-animated faces manipulated by human actors — to emote and fight through these scenes.
It does take a few minutes for our human brains — and in this universe, humans are in cognitive decline — to sort out which character is which. Once a viewer gets over that threshold, “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” reveals itself to be a stirring piece of science fiction, as well as a deft allegory about the dangers of power and the conundrum of knowing who to trust.
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‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’
★★★1/2
Opens Friday, May 10, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence/action. Running time: 145 minutes.