Many years after the reign of Caesar, a young ape goes on a journey that will lead him to question everything he's been taught about the past and make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.
Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes is directed by Wes Ball who previously directed all three of The Maze Runner films.
Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes is a standalone sequel to War Of The Planet Of The Apes. It's the fourth film in the Planet Of The Apes reboot films and is the tenth overall film of the franchise.
Planet Of The Apes is a film franchise that I truly love and I'm always excited to hear when a new installment is releasing, I wasn't sure how they could follow up from the excellent Matt Reeves trilogy (Rise, Dawn and War) but I was interested to see what they were going to do.
This film takes 300 years after War the previous film, Ceaser is dead and almost immediately one of the film's main themes comes into play…manipulation and twisting someone's words to mean something else entirely. In this case that someone is Ceaser who taught peace between humans and apes, the film's main villain Proximus completely alters that and manages to create a clan of apes that believe whatever he says.
The introduction of Proximus is really excellent here, he's a manipulative monarch that uses others to get what he wants. What really makes him excellent is he's played by Kevin Durand who gives my favorite performance of the film, what really fascinates me is Durand's performance whether intentional or not comes off as a direct opposite of Andy Serkis's performance as Ceaser. Ceaser used his emotions accordingly and was genuinely excellent leader, that came with Andy Serkis completely hitting it out of the park. Proximus is manipulative and has so much power in his voice.
Proximus as a villain is also a lot of fun as well, every time you see him on screen you just sort of want to be the fly in the room to hear the conversations that are being had to get the full impact. It all comes from Kevin Durand's performance that always makes sure to never go over the top and to truly capture Proximus's manipulative nature.
The rest of the cast are quite great here Owen Teague plays the main protagonist Noah who the film centers around, a lot of the film is sort of creating a hero's journey type of story which although not entirely new everything else around it really makes up for it. Peter Macon as Raka and Freya Allan as Mae are also some standouts as well. I don't think the three are as strong character wise as Proximus is, but they are still a lot of fun and the world around them does compliment them well.
One of the best parts of Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes is the atmosphere and the world itself, almost immediately we are struck by incredible visuals that completely capture the beauty of the Reeves trilogy. The film's beginning moments really set up and give the viewer an idea of what to expect as it takes you on the journey. The atmosphere during the action scenes and the third act is truly fantastic, it's suspenseful and truly leaves you at the edge of your seat. There's so much going on and the amount of detail the film goes over is truly great, what's also great here is that you genuinely care about these characters. Noah starts out as a very basic protagonist but as the film goes on you really start to care for him, you want him to save his family and to succeed in his goal.
Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes is a worthy sequel to War and is a very promising start to a new trilogy, I am very interested to see exactly where they go with this series!
Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes is playing in theaters.
9/10 A
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