Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the tenth film in the Planet of the Apes franchise. There were four sequels to the Charlton Heston-led Planet of the Apes (1968), an ill-conceived Tim Burton reboot in 2001, and a prequel trilogy beginning with Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011). When that prequel trilogy closed with War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), there was a relatively neat connection between that set of films and the Heston-led movies, even though the Heston timeline gets more convoluted as it continued. This film, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, is meant to be jammed between War and the original 1968 film. If you’re not confused yet, you will be if you delve even further into the franchise’s lore.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is directed by Wes Ball, and it stars Owen Teague, Freya Allan, and Kevin Durant. The point of view character is Noa (Teague), a young ape in a thriving village of sentient apes. When his village is attacked by other, more violent apes, he must journey to find the captured villagers. Along the way he meets a human who eventually challenges his preconceptions about the differences between apes and humans.
The biggest issues with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes are its convoluted story and the way the film’s structure doesn’t produce a dramatic tension. On a most basic level, there is no kingdom in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes until over an hour and twenty-five minutes into the movie. For most of an exorbitantly long first act, we are following Noa on a journey, but we’re not given any indication how he’s navigating his way to find his lost friends.
Once the film introduces the mentor figure, an orangutan named Raca (Peter Macon), on this hero’s journey, it delves into lore and backstory that harkens back to Caesar (Andy Serkis) from the prequel trilogy – a detour that will lose people who haven’t seen the other movies. The idea that Caesar’s message has become perverted and opaque after generations of entropy is intriguing, but the film fails to delineate the sects that have formed. Particularly, Caesar’s message was that apes are more civilized than humans because apes don’t kill other apes, but the action in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes doesn’t separate true adherents to Caesar’s message from the frauds, who use Caesar as a token to increase their political and social power.
Viewers who like the worlds and vistas in the prequel trilogy will find a lot to like here. The visual effects are photorealistic, and there are some vibrant action sequences. It’s easy to lose the performances under all the VFX, so special notice should be given to Teague and Durant, who deliver solid performances; Durant is especially menacing.
Ultimately, there are some good ideas and good technical elements in the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, but nothing coherently comes together either thematically or on a story level.
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