I just saw the latest installment of the rebooted Planet of the Apes franchise (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes) and while it was mostly interesting with some cool action pieces, it left something to be desired. There were some parts that just felt random and the kingdom in question doesn't really have much significance. However, this film did serve to set up the rest of the series so ultimately, it's worth a watch regardless.
When War for the Planet of the Apes dropped in the summer of 2017, I thought it would be the last one of the trilogy, so imagine my surprise when I found out last year that not only would there be another film, but that it would take place a full 300 years after the events of the 2017 film in a world where the apes didn't remember the legacy of Caesar.
Admittedly, I was a bit uncertain about the premise. I figured if they ever made a follow up to the trilogy it would be about Caesar's surviving kid. Generally when it comes to franchises, I'm not always the biggest fan of prequel or sequel series, especially if they contain completely different characters and actors. But the characters in this movie weren't really an issue and in fact, they did remind me a bit of Caesar's crew.
Actually, for about the first half, the movie felt very much in line with the rest of the series. Rise, Dawn, and War always felt very different from each other but still telling the same overall story following the apes in a world with humans, so this movie definitely fits the bill on that end.
Kingdom starts off with a fun sequence involving Noa and his two companions, Suna and Anaya, seeking eagle eggs for a sort of coming-of-age ceremony. We learn that this particular tribe of apes raises eagles which is cool although it doesn't really seem to have any sort of meaning or reasoning behind it. Unfortunately, a human crosses this forbidden tunnel and comes into their home and in the event, Noa's egg breaks. He rides out in the middle of the night to get another one, which is when this other tribe of apes shows up and raids the eagle tribe's home. Noa tries to protect his family but his father dies and his mother and friends are taken captive.
If this sounds familiar, that's because the beginning of War involves Caesar's home getting raided by the unwelcome Colonel, who kills Caesar's wife and child and later takes his clan prisoner, with Caesar coming in afterwards and getting imprisoned as well. Personally, I don't mind that these situations are so similar because it works well enough to establish the new characters and set Noa on his journey. Interestingly enough, this other tribe of apes claims to be doing all this in the name of Caesar, and of course the audience knows Caesar was against this sort of thing.
On his journey, Noa first comes across Raka, an orangutan who shows him books and explains that he's the last of those who followed the true word of Caesar, and that these other apes have twisted Caesar's words for their agenda. This is definitely a cool avenue to explore, but unfortunately, it actually doesn't get explored. Given that the premise of this film was that Noa starts off knowing nothing about the legend of Caesar and learns it through this journey, he doesn't actually learn that much in his short time with Raka so I'm wondering if maybe learning about the Caesar legacy is an aspect that will develop further in the next movie.
After they meet, Raka joins Noa on his journey and they come across a human girl who has been following Noa for food. Raka names her Nova and convinces Noa to let her join them on their journey. They find a watering hole where a whole group of humans, dressed in rags, come out to drink water and bathe like the zebras. These humans have become completely animalistic whereas Nova seems to be different, even though she, like them, can't speak.
The three part ways just before the bad ape tribe finds Nova and a fantastic action sequence ensues: they chase Nova through the forest and grasslands, where she hides and then surprisingly yells out Noa's name and makes a run for him as he rides his horse towards her and picks her up just before the other apes can get her.
It's awesome overall, but I initially thought Nova screaming Noa's name was like an homage to Caesar speaking for the first time in Rise when he said "No!" I thought maybe this film was going to show that humans have the potential to regain their intelligence and that Nova would slowly learn to speak from Noa and Raka, but then they revealed that actually Nova could speak all along and was just pretending not to and acting like one of the non-speaking humans because she didn't know if she could trust them (i.e. the writers needed her to not speak until now and came up with a random reason to explain it).
This was honestly kind of disappointing. Nova, whose real name is Mae, turns out to have been separated from her people and later on it turns out that she has to carry out this mission on behalf of the humans. But for now, the three of them continue on their journey until they get intercepted by the bad ape tribe. Raka saves Mae but ends up getting swept away by rushing water in what appears to be his death but might not be.
There's no body, and although he doesn't appear for the rest of the film, he was killed off really randomly and unnecessarily without fulfilling his entire purpose. He passed off his necklace to Noa, but what more did he actually manage to teach Noa? It would feel like a waste if this was his sudden send-off so I wouldn't be surprised if in the next film they suddenly find him chilling in the woods somewhere. They probably only did it like this because they had no room for him in the weird storyline that came in the rest of the movie.
That's where the movie really starts to lose the plot. Mae is taken to hang with this other human who tells her they get to live it up with the apes in charge as long as they use their human intelligence to help them. Meanwhile, Noa is put with the other apes like Caesar in War. They are his eagle tribe but now belong to Proximus, the ruler of this aggressor tribe who uses the name Caesar to carry out his plans apparently.
This villain is honestly really flat. His goal is conquer other tribes because Caesar said "Apes Together Strong" which I guess very vaguely aligns itself with the conquering mindset of Augustus and the Roman emperors that came after Julius Caesar's death, but then he uses those apes to try and break into this large human-built vault. That's about the extent of his character. He claims that his whole place is his kingdom, but so what? We don't learn anything about his personal philosophy or his aspirations. He's really just an agent for other things to happen.
Those other things include Mae recruiting Noa, joined by Suna and Anaya, for a plan involving sneaking into the vault to retrieve something that can help humans regain the ability to speak and then blowing up the dam keeping the water outside from flooding the place. She ends up killing the other human with her bare hands which definitely doesn't make humans look super trustworthy to the three apes that stand by watching.
Mae goes off and gets her computer hard drive thing and grabs a gun just in case while Noa finds a bunch of human kids' books showing apes in cages at the zoo. This part is really interesting because it fully demonstrates to Noa how apes used to be treated way back in history and somewhat mirrors the way Mae was looking at her fellow humans at the watering hole, who didn't descend from immunes and therefore didn't retain their intelligence like she did, becoming mere shells of what humanity use to be.
It sets up this future conflict of the humans doing everything they can to go back to how things were while the apes do anything they can to keep that from happening.
However, all this is overshadowed by the randomness of the plot in this second half. I just wish they had done something else because it feels like they didn't know what else to do so they just threw in some random stuff.
On their way out of the vault, Proximus and the crew are waiting for them, but Mae uses a gun to save an ape from killing an eagle tribe member. Then, since there are more guns in the vault, she goes ahead and blows up the dam to prevent Proximus from getting them despite Noa's insistence that she not go through with the explosion.
The water floods the vault, causing the eagle tribe to climb up as far as possible to get away from the water and the bad apes. They come out at the top of the cliff where for some reason everyone just stands there as Proximus beats up Noa, even though they could now easily just get Proximus. Instead what happens is Noa sings like his father the Master of Birds used to, which calls his father's eagle and all the other eagles who peck the hell out of Proximus and send him tumbling off the cliff and into the water.
Yes, the eagle stuff was threaded throughout the film, super obviously in fact, but what does this have to do with anything? Maybe in the next two movies the apes will have to team up with more animals to beat the humans or something? I just feel that the entire second half of the movie once they lose Raka and get taken by Proximus's apes, all of that plot is just so random and pointless and only exists so Noa can see the kids' book and Mae can get the hard drive.
Speaking of which, Mae takes the drive to some underground bunker where a person in full protective gear comes and gets it. Mae then leaves as that person goes back under and puts in the drive, which kicks the satellites into gear and finally allows them to reach human contact. This part is definitely very interesting since it somewhat mirrors an aspect of Dawn, which involved remaining human immunes trying to get into contact with the outside world. If this movie was meant to parallel War in some of its plot elements as I discussed before plus elements like apes teaming up with a human girl and a mini team going on a road trip, then maybe the next movie will emulate Dawn and the last movie in the trilogy will emulate Rise.
Honestly, that would be really cool, though I don't know what that means for the ending. I don't expect the series to come completely full circle with the humans coming back on top, and I also don't expect the apes to come into a dominating human-like position where they're doing science experiments on humans because that would be ridiculous, though I do expect Noa and the gang to get more into books and written history and things like that because clearly the lack of it in ape history is partially what caused a lot of strife in this movie.
Maybe this trilogy is heading towards an ending where both species realize they have to coexist together and at least try to leave each other alone? Though I'm not sure how either side could ever fully come to that conclusion so maybe it's gonna be more like we'll always have to live and fight with each other for the rest of our existence.
Coexisting has always been a major theme for this whole series, and Caesar was really big on that, especially in Dawn. Since this movie's resolution includes Noa giving Mae the Caesar necklace while she hides a gun behind her back and then Noa taking Suna to go see the telescope he saw earlier in the film while wondering if apes and humans can coexist, I think that means it's going to be the major theme tackled in the next film.
Unfortunately, this film didn't really seem to have any theme or do much with the idea of apes twisting Caesar's words to create propaganda. It feels like a missed opportunity and that this movie was mostly just set up, though possibly like I said earlier they could get into the whole importance of the written word and written history thing. If I'm on the right track with all my speculations, then I look forward to seeing where the rest of the series goes. Dawn was the best of the original trilogy, so looks like I've got some very high hopes for this next one, however long it takes to come out.