Generations after Caesar liberated his clan in the War of the Planet of the Apes, the human population has dwindled to the point of near extinction and the apes live in peace.  Noa (Owen Teague), Soona (Lydia Peckham), and Anaya (Travis Jeffery) spend their day climbing the trees in search of eagle eggs that they will hatch and raise as their own as part of their clan’s coming-of-age ritual.  The lifelong friends are excited and nervous, but on the eve of the ceremony, General Sylva (Eka Darville), leads his army of extremists to lay siege on Noa’s clan and takes his prisoners to serve his king, Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand). 

Wes Ball directs Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes penned by Josh Friedman and rebooting the Matt Reeves’ trilogy, itself a reboot of the Sci-Fi staple, Planet of the Apes (1968) from Franklin J. Schaffner.  Running 145 minutes, the Twentieth Century Studios picture continues with many of the same themes and elements that make the wider Apes franchise so popular, while pivoting from the overwhelming bleak trajectory which Reeves’ films were headed and almost seems like it is leading up to the events of Schaffner’s original film.  

One of the more shocking – and honestly, refreshing – choices made in Kingdom is just how much takes place in the daytime.  Leaning so heavily on CGI to transform the human cast into the apes, not utilizing the shadows of nighttime to hide the edges is a bold move and demands not just total confidence but total competence from the effects team at Weta FX who really outdid themselves here.  Now, they do have the benefit of only having one human character to really contend with – nomadic orphan Mae (Freya Allan) – but when compared to Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024) which also had a minimal human footprint on the film or the trailer and marketing material for Mufasa (2024) which will be sans humans, it is pretty incredible at just how good Kingdom looks and how it is able to integrate all the elements into the picture.  There is a visual consistency here as if the team was following a strict style guide so that everything in the frame looks organic both in the moment and across the runtime. 

Kingdom is not just effects and no story, rather, it is a bold diversion from what came before it, leaning on the influence of Caesar in this world, but not attached to him.  For the first act as we follow Noa, there is no mention of what came before except for a brief title card to establish the time period and this is a truly refreshing approach to franchise filmmaking.  Friedman was determined to deliver his own story and he delivered just that.  It is not until Sylva arrives on the scene with an extreme and skewed practice of Caesar’s teachings that the film plugs into what came before, but it is not content to lean back on nostalgia.  Friedman breaks our perceived image of Caesar, but does so with a purpose in the same way that Rian Johnson retooled and challenged our perception of the Jedi Order and Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi (2017).   

As Noa tracks Sylva to Proximus’ compound, he comes across Raka (Peter Macon) who is also a disciple of Caeser’s but has gleaned a much more benevolent message from his teachings.  Raka acts as a bit of a salve to Noa’s growing brashness, and he presents an interesting moral challenge for our young, ape hero, especially regarding how they interact with Mae.  Noa’s clan held the humans as some kind of malevolent forest spirit, “echos” that will sneak around and steal unguarded resources, whereas Raka understands that the tides of power have shifted and strives to be a conservator of humankind in line with Caesar’s affinity for the species.  Raka is setting up a larger conversation about how humans treat nature, and through the machinations of the plot, a larger conversation about respect for all life forms, but he is untimely dispatched with; though there is always a slim chance he may return in a later installment and one that would help elevate this newest chapter’s philosophy which is beginning to grow stale. 

Kingdom is not looking to stray too far from the originating themes of the larger Planet of the Apes franchise despite pushing the narrative forward from where Reeves left off.  At a certain point, the idea that humans should be noble stewards to nature is at the core of the story so it is understandable that Friedman does not abandon it whole cloth, but it is a shame that it is not teased out further.  Friedman weaves some details into his narrative that point towards his desire to have greater introspection than his predecessors, but philosophically, Kingdom is treading the same ground.  What Kingdom does really well is that it takes its very blunt messaging and elevates it so that it feels like something more nuanced because it is folded into moments of character growth.  Namely, this occurs late in the film when Noa and his friends enter an abandoned schoolroom and begin looking at a book about a trip to the zoo and in it, they see illustrations of animals in cages; apes in cages being taunted and laughed at by human children.  A careful viewer will notice, not its loose ties to the Curious George books, but that the illustrations are a direct role reversal from when George Taylor (Charlton Heston) and his crew crash-landed and were captured for observation by the team of Ape scientists.  This book and this discovery of how things were before Caesar and the realization that washes over Noa and his friends that maybe Mae is not to be trusted, that there is some latent, inherent superiority which she harbors is what really drives the finale of the film more so than the action. They make the choice to trust her so that they can further liberate their clan from Proximus and return to their home. 

As for the finale, Ball throws the film into overdrive, ramping up the action that until now was only peppered throughout.  Taking place in a sealed-off military bunker housing that contains, according to Proximus, the summation of human knowledge and technology, Mae and Noa unite to stop the mad king from being able to utilize the weapons and power found within.  Unlike the previous films which follow a more straightforward path toward battle, Kingdom plays out like a heist as our protagonists lay a trap and sneak into the bunker to destroy what they find.  It is some of the visually darkest sequences in the film, and not in the same way that the exterior night scenes were dark, but a much more mechanical, manufactured darkness.  It does obscure some of the events in the finale, a bummer given how much we got to see in the earlier parts of the film, but even still the action remains quite legible which is impressive given that the protagonists have very few defining features that we must quickly latch on to as they go rushing by the camera. 

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the absolute perfect example of how to reboot a franchise. It blends in the DNA of what makes the characters and lore so enduring to fans of the series while opening up the world and pushing forward in a new bold direction. It does not swear fealty to everything that came before it and the film takes the very unique approach to lore in that we see both sides of a character whom we have rooted for across the 6 years that Caesar’s trilogy took to play out; a timely reflection of how two extremist views can clash in competition with each other. The film quickly captures audiences and we do not feel like we are watching something alien despite all but two characters being covered up in a digital ape suit. Further, the effects work is very tastefully done so we are not sitting there wishing we were watching John Chambers’ work from 1968. In full disclosure, the film does circle its themes a little bit especially as Raka is worked into the plot, and in result runs a little long – the longest in the series to date – so we feel a little burned by Friedman given Raka’s fate, but overall, it is thrilling, engaging, and most of all, a lot of fun. A great way to open the Summer Blockbuster Season. See it in cinemas quick before it ends up as just another distraction at home.