KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES - Andy's Review

[AndyDursin]

At least this doesn't look like another variation on "Apes running around in the dark Vancouver forest with Gary Oldman/Woody Harrelson screaming at them" -- even if the animation looks a little like they've dropped everybody into the AVATAR machine.

Personally I'd just remake the original movie at this point -- maybe that's next -- but after 2 movies of basically the same narrative line, at least this looks different (and familiar at the same time).

[AndyDursin]

Another trailer, all that's missing is some astronaut from the distant past crash landing.

[AndyDursin]

Reviews are in and they're mostly really good!

I'm up for this. WAR bored me but the change in setting and the fact we're actually getting the PLANET OF THE APES this time has me interested.

[AndyDursin]

7/10

The very definition of "servicebale," Wes Ball's continuation of the modern-day APES retains its mostly humorless, glum tone as post-pandemic apes butt heads with a few stray humans running about. The audience here follows one thoughtful simian named Noah as he tries to save his "Eagle Clan" after they're captured by the tyrannical "Proximus Caesar" who's distorting the name of the original, all the while a mysterious human girl (Freya Allen, quite good) tails his quest for redemption.

The motion capture and VFX are all solid as usual and Ball's action set pieces are mostly well done. The issue is a bloated, needlessly prolonged running time and Josh Friedman's simple screenplay, which is too straightforward and really devoid of any interesting dramatic elements to maintain audience engagement, punctuated by a near total lack of surprises.

As a result, kids might enjoy this more than the other entries, but its ridiculous 2.5 hour running time is absurd given how thin the picture is -- if you've watched the trailer, you've basically seen it all. Some smart pruning -- you could EASILY remove a half-hour from the film's slack pacing -- would have helped though there's also a nagging sense, as with the previous installment, that its adherence to a standard action formula robs the source material of its inherent inventiveness and playful elements, which even the Tim Burton film recognized.

It's cut-and-paste, comic book like action, solemnly and competently delivered, but little more.

[mkaroly]

I enjoyed the movie...the voice acting was incredible and everyone deserves props for the amount of emotion and feeling they put into their dialogue. Personally I was never bored - while the story was predictable I still found the journey entertaining and, at times, moving. I did hear the nods to Goldsmith's score in the music, but honestly the film score did not wow me - made me appreciate the uniqueness of Goldsmith's score even more (not that I needed a catalyst to do so). Between this and Godzilla x Kong (and Godzilla Minus One), I am impressed that at least where my tastes are concerned, the franchise pictures I gravitate toward were worth watching.

The one thing that irritated me about KINGDOM occurs at the end - it is a continuity thing where 'Nova' is holding something in her hand in one scene, and then in the very next the hand that was holding the thing all of a sudden is not holding anything. Stood out like a sore thumb to me and made no sense...you'll see what I mean if you watch the film.

[AndyDursin]

I just assumed she put it away but I agree, they could've just put an establishing shot there clarifying she wasn't holding "it".

I should clarify that I wasn't bored per se -- I just felt the pacing was slack. For me nearly every scene felt like it could have cut in half. There was no subtext to the film, no big reveal or surprise they were holding -- it's a movie that's very cut and dried. What you see in the trailer is what you're getting and nothing else. Which is why I felt it was a movie that would've been better as a brisker 90 minutes than a very bloated 145 minutes.

It's probably why the audience score was so low (comparatively speaking) and the worst of this run of films. There's nothing egregious about the ending that would've caused that -- except the fact it's like they're setting you up for a remake of the PREVIOUS movie where, once again, the dwindling human populace is going to fight it out with apes. We've already seen this done in the 2nd and 3rd movies of this cycle with little variance.

Also, William H. Macy's character was poorly defined and, ultimately, a totally missed opportunity to do something dramatically interesting.

[mkaroly]

Also, William H. Macy's character was poorly defined and, ultimately, a totally missed opportunity to do something dramatically interesting.

Agreed - it reminded me of Tim Robbin's character in War of the Worlds...waste of time having him there.

Also - wondering what they can actually do with the franchise instead of repeating the same stories over and over again. I feel like they need to branch out and do something like a three-part "Adventures on the Planet of the Apes" thing where the characters explore, learn about their world, learn about humanity, etc. While I was entertained by this recent film, I do agree that they are basically setting things up to reboot the last three films (which is not good).

[AndyDursin]

That's exactly my point Michael. It's like they're telling these peripheral stories around the "edges" of PLANET OF THE APES but the draw of those movies was this kind of wild, funny, black comic look at a world where apes were running the show.

Here, we're "getting there" but again it's mostly just Apes hanging on in a wild, depleted wasteland -- which I was disappointed they didn't do more with. The humans are still around -- they're just in a different place. Maybe it's leading up to something -- but it's too incremental for my tastes. Plus there is a lot of humor in those movies -- there's next to none here.

It's a series that inherently possesses a lot of imagination -- I just didn't feel this movie displayed much of it. It was a really on the nose action movie, didn't really advance the overall scenario and kind of left it twisting backwards to yet another "confrontation movie" we've seen already in this group of films. I mean, that's why I was bored with WAR, it felt like a re-run of the film before it.

This movie is well made and I liked the set-pieces. I just wanted "more", and it didn't quite deliver that.

[Paul MacLean]

It's cut-and-paste, comic book like action, solemnly and competently delivered, but little more.

Finally took this one in. I had pretty-much had the same reaction as you. I was also disappointed that the film's most interesting character -- the Orangutan Raka -- only has about 20 minutes of screen time. I was assuming he'd show-up later (having survived being washed away in the river) but alas no.

I was also confused in the first 15 or so minutes. I was initially under the impression that Noa was the father of the two other apes; he certainly seemed older and wiser -- and overall it was hard to tell what age any of the ape characters were supposed to be. Also why did the chimps all speak so slowly? And I know this is a geeky nitpick -- but the chimps were shown to be peaceful, while the gorillas were the violent aggressors. Jane Goodall's studies of chimps, as well as Diane Fossey's studies of gorillas pretty-much established that the opposite is true. Gorillas are larger and look more truculent, but are in fact more docile and less-aggressive than chimps.

This movie also reminded me -- on a cosmetic level -- of Love and Monsters. Both films center on a protagonist journeying out into a hazardous post-apocalyptic world of overgrown jungles, where he meets-up with a very attractive co-star. The climax of both movies take place in makeshift dwellings (with a large cave) at the edge of the sea, and have a violent final confrontation between the good guys and bad guys. Both movies were also filmed in Australia so they have a very similar look.

The ending also irked me, as it was yet another "open ended" finale that isn't satisfactorily resolved, so you have to wait another 3-5 years for the inevitable sequel (which will have its own unsatisfying ending).

[AndyDursin]

This was a weird instance where the movie mostly succeeded in what it was doing, yet what it was doing was very small and conceptually "meh". And the pacing was tedious for what little story content it had.

I also don't quite "get" why after 4 MOVIES (4!!) they're still "leading up to" PLANET OF THE APES. Why can't they just give us that world? The hell, you could overload it with FX and action scenes having the apes running around battling evil Mutant human zombies. The potential for something that would have greater commercial appeal is there but...they're still stuck on "can dwindling humans and apes get along" with a few backdrops of overgrown vegetation in cities supposed to give you that "apocalyptic" feel.

It's like they've made 4 movies out of CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES...which ran 90 minutes.

[Eric Paddon]

And that is one reason why I have had little interest in seeing this entire new franchise. The vibe has always been from the outset that this is about the rise of the Apes etc. and the focus on them whereas people forget that one of the things that makes the original film a classic is Charlton Heston's performance as Taylor and how we are seeing a perpetual misanthrope forced to become a defender of his own species when he finds himself in this "upside down world" only to have the rug pulled out from under him in the shocking climax. That element which IMO is what lifts the first movie above all other sequels and reboots is simply impossible to duplicate (and I never cared for the sequels of the original franchise once the apes became the central characters).

[Paul MacLean]

The vibe has always been from the outset that this is about the rise of the Apes etc. and the focus on them whereas people forget that one of the things that makes the original film a classic is Charlton Heston's performance as Taylor and how we are seeing a perpetual misanthrope forced to become a defender of his own species when he finds himself in this "upside down world" only to have the rug pulled out from under him in the shocking climax.

There seems to be a fear of character arcs these days. Maybe filmmakers and studios are afraid audiences won't identify with characters who are not likeable at the outset, or that audiences might lose interest in characters that change over the course of the film, I don't know.

I do know that we now almost never see evolving characters like George Taylor. Instead we have Ray, who is altruistic and a fully-trained Jedi right out of the box, and doesn't develop or grow or learn (instead it is Luke Skywalker who learns from her).

[AndyDursin]

Paul mentioned to me how sllooooowwwwwlllyyy the apes speak. That could've quickened up the pacing if they just spoke normally. By that point in their evolution shouldn't they sound like Roddy McDowall?

Instead the bad guy has the same cadence as Cookie Monster.

[Eric Paddon]

Maybe another reason why they can't stop doing "rise of the Apes revolting against human authority" stories is because they are so in love with seeing ape revolution as a metaphor for BLM protests? And naturally they wouldn't want to show them in charge becoming the oppressors!