Too many minutes, too many fights, too many unnecessary scenes… Here is the verdict of this new Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes by Wes Ball with Owen Teague, Freya Allan and Kevin Durand.
The trilogy led briskly from 2011 to 2017 by Andy Serkis in the role of Caesar was timely since it lifted the veil on the events that allowed apes to become the dominant primates on earth, certainly moving away from Pierre Boulle’s novel , but broadening the discourse and offering important philosophical themes and political issues.
20th Century Studios
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is, in this sense, useless. Fourth feature film in the “reboot” of the B series film franchise – Z series for the last ones – from the 1960s and 1970s, Wes Ball’s film aims to be a derivative bridge between the trilogy and the originals.
In fact, we find ourselves a few centuries after the death of Caesar. The apes do not live in harmony with each other, with the chimpanzee clan of Noa (Owen Teague) being savagely attacked by that of Proximus (Kevin Durand), an ape who has managed to rally the gorillas around his kingdom project which he intends to solidify by getting his hands on ancient human war technologies.
On the way to find the members of his tribe, Noa meets Raka (Peter Macon), an orangutan guardian of Caesar’s teachings. But above all, the chimpanzee comes across Mae (Freya Allan) – whom he names Nova in one of the many nods to the 1968 film and the novel –, a thinking, talking human who also wishes to defeat to the conquering aims of Proximus.
The 145 minutes stretch, the scenes at the beginning describing the life of the tribe of Noa, those where we see humans sharing a body of water with zebras or the combat scenes which imperceptibly make us think of a new match between Godzilla and King Kong definitely add nothing to this cult franchise of science fiction cinema.
20th Century Studios
Misguided, screenwriter Josh Friedman, to whom we owe the indigestible War of the Worlds (2005) by Steven Spielberg or the painful Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) by Tim Miller, no longer knows what to invent to pass the time, undoubtedly in order to give spectators the illusion of getting value for their money. The dialogues do not shine with their originality, the ending in the form of a false historical questioning smacks of laziness (and the predictable sequel, Bob Iger, the boss of Disney, having said that he would give his agreement if the dollars were there ) and the mystery sewn with white thread around the motives of Mae’s actions only instills an artificial dramatic tension.
So what’s good about this? Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes too heavy? Proximus’ examination of the perversion of Caesar’s legacy for political purposes, a recurring theme throughout the franchise’s works. The allegory of racism is also present – there are interesting echoes of the novel and the original film – as is the examination of this incessant quest for power. Freya (except for her “mission”) also constitutes an interesting surprise, the young woman ultimately proving to be the main character of the feature film (in a plot twist already seen in the very good Air by Ben Affleck).
We will console ourselves for the disappointments by saying that if there is a sequel, the production team will finally be able to concentrate on what constituted the heart – and the success – of the trilogy of the 2010s: the examination of humanity in the through the eyes of the monkeys.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes hits the screens of Quebec in force from May 10.
