ADVENTURE / SCIENCE FICTION
“Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes”
USA. 12 years. Director: Wes Ball
With: Freya Allan, Diecen Lachman, William H. Macy, Oven Teague, Kevin Durand, Peter Macon
Oh, but this movie is great to watch. With special effects a lot, signed New Zealand’s Weta Digital, who have been at the pinnacle of computer animation pop since the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and certainly groundbreaking motion capture-game.
That is: The monkeys that dominate it (we only see a couple homo sapiens), are played by real life people, and have faces we can read the way we read the expressions of our two-legged sisters and brothers. These acting efforts have then been digitally animated according to all the rules of art, after which what we see on the screen is – voilà! – apes with human emotional registers.
So far all well and good. If only the film had had a more original, less archetypal story to tell, everything would have been fun and silly. But – alas. On that point, “Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes” fails us, unfortunately.
Because listen here: It’s about a young chimpanzee, Noa (played by Owen Teague), – who lives “many generations” after the previous films’ focal point, Caesar, died – who must “find himself” and “become the hero of its own history”. Exactly as countless young men have had to in just as countless superhero and adventure films in the past.
We are in a future where a man-made virus has turned nature upside down. The apes have become wise and given the gift of speech, while humans have nearly exterminated themselves. The few who have survived are believed to be stupid as bread.
The young, promising monkey Noa then experiences a defining trauma. His village is attacked by a mysterious clan of larger, masked apes, led by the fearsome Proximus (Kevin Durand). Monkey dad dies, Noa narrowly escapes. The rest of the inhabitants are abducted, and put into slave labor in the kingdom Proximus is building, modeled after the ancient Roman one.
There is one aspect of civilization-building that preoccupies the megalomaniacal Proximus more than any other. He will have a vault built into a mountain opened, which will contain priceless technology and war material from the time when man ruled the globe. (As of now, Proximus and his ape army only have one weapon at hand: A primitive electroshock weapon).
But Noah, yes! As his father’s son and expected future leader type, he must embark on a journey through the ruins of the destroyed human civilization. Objective: To find and free their fellow primates. A daring project for an inexperienced young chimpanzee, and the dangers are, as usual, many. One of them is a human – Mae (Freya Allen, rather pale) – who turns out to be more intelligent and cunning than is usual for the degenerate species.
Fortunately, he also meets a wise old orangutan, Raka (Peter Macon), who teaches Noa a lot about life, and joins the journey. Our hero arrives in Proximus’ kingdom in time to hear the demagogue proclaiming himself “the new Caesar!”. But will he be able to save his own from a life of slavery? Guess.
The original “Planet Of The Apes” film (1968) was a B-movie based on a really good idea, equipped with one of the best twisters of all time until the very end. “Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes” is a modern B-movie blockbuster-mundur, equipped with a spacious budget ($165 million) and a generic script.
A delightful visual experience. Although kicked one initially gets from seeing the human-like animals, must be said to diminish as the two hours and 25 minutes progress, and one is left looking for something unexpected, something different, just one – 1! – surprise.
It won’t come. “Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes” is a standard action-adventure, with a handful of rather ugly scenes of violence, sentimental “animals are better than humans” morality and some scattered, toothless attempts at humor.
But with monkeys then, rather than humans. Whether that is sufficient in itself must be up to the individual. (People looking for a sounding board in what they see can always – as in 2014 – associate it with the tragedy unfolding in Gaza.)
If you have never seen a “Planet Of The Apes” film before – none of the three are genuinely good the reboots which came between 2011 and 2017, with Andy Serkis as Caesar – you will probably perceive this as fat stuff. We who however hair watch them, and suffer from advanced popcorn movie-fatigue in its generality, is probably going to walk out of the hall a little molested.
There are going to be far worse wannabe blockbusters released during the upcoming summer season. “Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes” isn’t even the weakest movie in this one the franchiseas it is coldly called – that award goes to Tim Burton’s remake from 2001.
But it is a bit bitter that no one took more care with the script. “Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes” could have been proper Good.
