Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

We've all experienced a plethora of film franchises through the years, but I have to say that 'The Planet of the Apes' franchise is probably the longest running one--55 years and counting! It all started with "The Planet of the Apes" back in 1969 and was an instant success. Now, many films later, we have "Kingdom of the "Planet of the Apes" to continue with.

Set several generations in the future following Caesar's reign, in which apes are the dominant species living harmoniously and humans have been reduced to jiving in the shadows, as a new tyrannical leader, Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand) builds his empire, one young ape, Noa (Owen Teague) undertakes a harrowing journey that will cause him to question all that he has known about the past which he learned from a wise older ape, Raka (Peter Macon) and to make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.

Others to round out the cast are Freya Allan as Mae, William H. Macy as Trevathan, Dichen Lachman as Korina, Karin Konoval as Maurice, Sara Wiseman as Dar, Lydia Peckham as Soona, Eka Darville as Sylva, Travis Jeffrey as Anaya and Zay Domo Artist as Milo.

This was intensely directed with plenty of grit by Wes Ball ("The MazeRunner" '14, "Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials" '15, "Maze Runner: The Death Cure" '18) plus shorts. Certainly working on the 'Maze Runner' franchise has served this filmmaker tremendously considering the intensity in both films is definitely similar. His ability to encourage his actors to dig deep to bring out the different characteristics of the different apes was interesting in that, we, as people are also very different when interacting. It was executed well by writer Josh Friedman ("Chain Reaction" (story) '96, "War of the Worlds" '05, "The Black Dahlia" '06, "Locke & Key" )TV movie) '11, "The Asset" (TV movie) '12, "Terminator: Dark Fate" (story) '19, "Avatar: The Way of Water" (story) '22) plus TV, based on characters created by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, which is based on the novel by Pierre Boulle. Even though this writer has a fair amount of experience under his belt, this screenplay was a bit long-in-the-tooth where approximately 15 minutes of the running time could've been cut and still wouldn't have lost any impact of the story. Other than a couple of places of implausibility, the story definitely kept me moving, especially about the last half hour of the film. If this writer is intriguing to you, his "Avatar 4" is in production for a 2029 release. The visual effects by Weta FX were stunning and certainly enhanced the story. 

Certainly if you're a 'Planet of the Apes' aficionado, you will revel with this. It was certainly better than I ever thought it would be. And, even though most of the cast are relative newcomers, it was a solid ensemble cast. Oh, and assuming this makes a ton of money, it's all set up to continue. Can you say--S E Q U E L?

Out of 4 Stars: 3                                        Rated: PG-13                                          144mins.