Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

 

Director Wes Ball's epic entry in the amazingly long-lived Planet of the Apes franchise shares with its predecessors a fascination with questions of humanity -- as concept AND practice.

Since the second film in the original series (1970's Beneath the Planet of the Ape), audiences have found the answer to those questions by watching the primates "ape" human prejudice, self-regard and destructiveness.

Like their human predecessors, the apes divide themselves into tribes -- scientists, clergy, warriors, common laborers -- with their competing / conflicting interests and ambitions. Though not particularly nuanced, the analogy is rich and fascinating.

The latest film takes up the story many years after the death of the ape's heroic liberator, Caesar, whom this generation has either never heard of or has forgotten. The elders have bastardized Caesar's generous teachings on cooperation with and compassion for humans and hunt them as game. (Parallels to religion are apparent.)

After a failed experiment that altered the primates into speaking beings that then took over the planet (thus the name), humans were left dim and dumb.

A village of ape falconers where young Noa (Owen Teague), the son of the clan's leader, lives is raided by marauders and the inhabitants enslaved to work for the belligerent and greedy King Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand). Noa, presumed dead, escapes capture and sets out to find and free his family and friends.

On the way, he encounters an orangutan named Raka (Peter Macon), the last of the true followers of the original Caesar, who accompanies Noa on his journey to rescue his clan. Soon they discover they are being followed by a human woman (Freya Allan) on a mission of her own. The three join forces.

Even though the narrative feels familiar, Ball, a visual effects artist, has created an intricate and fully realized future world with highly relatable characters. He has staged extraordinary, vertiginous acrobatic set pieces, as well.

As has been true for all of the latest pictures in the series, the miracle of computer generation leaves no visible traces of the actors playing the apes. The seamlessness is worth the price of admission