KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Wes Ball
Stars: Owen Teague, Freya Allen, Kevin Durand, Peter Macon, William H Macy, Eka Darville, Lydia Peckham, Travis Jeffery.
This continuation of the long running sci-fi franchise (ten films, a tv series and several comic books) based on the classic 1963 novel written by Pierre Boulle appears to breathe new life into the series and take it in a new direction. The fourth film in this rebooted series that began in 2011 with Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes is set many years after the events of 2017’s War For The Planet Of The Apes.
A virus has wiped out most of the human race, and those who have survived have lost the ability to speak and have become feral. Apes have become the alpha creatures in this not so brave new world and the human cities lie in ruins, reclaimed by nature. The apes now live in colonies dispersed across the land, and for the most part they are peaceful. And Caesar, the wise and compassionate ape who envisaged a world in which man and ape could live together in harmony, has died and his dream seems to have died with him. Now the ape world is ruled by the tyrannical and power hungry Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand, recently seen in Abigail). Proximus oppressed many clans, forcing them into servitude, using them to attack other clans.
One such clan is that which is home to the young chimpanzee Noa (Owen Teague, from the tv series Bloodline, etc), whose clan raise eagles and train them. When Proximus’s troops attack Noa’s village, burn it to the ground and make off with his family, Noa sets out on a journey to find them and rescue them. Along the way he meets the wise old orangutan Raka (Peter Macon), who remembers Caesar and his teachings, and Mae (Freya Allen, from the tv series The Witcher, etc), a human with a mission of her own which becomes clear as the film progresses.
Noa and Mae eventually make their way to Proximus’s beachfront fortress where he is using enslaved apes to try and penetrate a massive vault built into the cliff face. Proximus believes the vault contains human technology that will help him retain his power. Proximus also has a human prisoner – Trevathan (William H Macy, from Fargo, etc), a historian who is passing on his knowledge of the old human world to the apes.
Director Wes Ball (The Maze Runner trilogy, etc) pays homage to the 1968 original with a couple of scenes that will remind audiences of that film – one is a scene in which apes on horseback chase a human through a field, and there is a familiar looking waterfront location. At one stage it seems as though Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes is heading down a path similar to 1970’s Beneath The Planet Of The Apes, but thankfully writers Josh Friedman (Avatar: The Way Of Water, etc), and regular series writers Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa take a detour that sets the scene for a likely sequel that may offer an alternative take on 1973’s Battle For The Planet Of The Apes.
Ball’s handling of the key action sequences is quite muscular, but they also seem a little bombastic. The film was shot by cinematographer Gyula Pados and looks superb. The film was largely shot in Sydney at the Disney Studios in Moore Park and the wilds outside Sydney, but the special effects team and production designers have effectively used green screen techniques to recreate an otherworldly look for the setting. Great production design from Daniel T Donance captures the imposing nature of Proximus’s fortress.
Special effects have come a long way since the Oscar winning makeup of the 1968 original, and now a combination of state-of-the-art CGI and excellent motion capture techniques from WETA bring the apes to life in realistic fashion and give them human-like facial expressions. But unlike the recent films in the series when audiences felt an emotional connection with the character of Caesar (as brilliantly rendered by Andy Serkis) here we don’t quite have the same sense of empathy or connection, despite the best efforts of Teague to bring human touches to his performance as Noa.
The prickly relationship that develops between Noa and Mae plays out throughout the film, and Teague and Allen bring out the tension and suspicion that they harbour towards each other. Both Allen and Teague bring a nice physicality to their performances. Durand brings menace to his role as Proximus. Macon’s gentle presence lends some humour to the material, and reminds audiences of Maurice Evans’s character from the original. Macy’s character needed to be fleshed out more to make him three dimensional.
However, with an overly generous run time of 140 minutes, this latest instalment in the Planet Of The Apes saga feels unnecessarily bloated and takes its time to get started. Nonetheless it certainly sets the stage for yet another sequel.
★★★☆
