It’s an odd franchise, Planet of the Apes. There rarely seems to be a great public clamour for it to continue once one instalment finishes yet, every time, a new one is made anyway and, almost every time, it comes out to big acclaim and big money. Seven years after War ended the Andy Serkis-led Caesar prequel trilogy, and 56 years since the first one delivered one of cinema’s most iconic endings, here comes Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes to continue that tradition. Though certainly not as good as its immediate, Matt Reeves-directed predecessors, it’s still a solid – and astonishingly well-CG’ed – adventure that has already enjoyed some of the healthiest box office returns of any 2024 film.

After a brief prologue saying a final goodbye to Caesar, we jump a couple of hundred years into the future, landing us at a sort of halfway point between the end of human civilisation from the Caesar trilogy and the start of the advanced ape civilisations (the apes here all talk, but not fully fluently yet) from the 60s and 70s originals. Guiding us through this world – one governed but not fully tamed by apes, in which nature has reclaimed most of the old human world – is Noa (Owen Teague), a young chimpanzee from a peaceful tribe whose village is destroyed by the burgeoning empire of Proximus (Kevin Durand), who is searching for a very special human.

This is Mae (Freya Allan), one of the few remaining people to have not gone completely feral from the virus that granted the apes their newfound wisdom and verbosity, and it’s her and Noa’s journey as reluctant allies against Proximus that forms the backbone of the story. New director Wes Ball and writer Josh Friedman tell this story at a gentle pace, making sure they take their time letting us get a feel for this new world, before making moves towards the eventual, and spectacular, final destination – Kingdom runs at almost two and a half hours, but is paced well enough that you rarely feel this epic length.

It’s time mostly well spent, fleshing out this new world on America’s West Coast and its structures (though, if you’ve by any chance played the second Horizon game, a lot of it might feel a bit familiar), all brought to life by the typical best-in-class VFX. Everything looks great here, while the apes themselves continue to be genuinely astonishing. Their eyes glow with life, their skin cracks against the world’s hardships, and the fur looks as if you could just reach out and grab it. Just like the last three Apes movies (and also, of course, Avatar), it’s the sort of CG character work that you marvel at not just on its own merits but also at just how much better it is than the industry standard for these sorts of blockbusters.

You really get a feel for the performances beneath the chimp, gorilla, and orangutan faces while, at the same time, fully believing in this society of talking chimps, with no hint of artifice remaining. Teague is a solid leading presence as Noa, while Durand pretty much steals the show as the brutal yet clever and curious Proximus – though Peter Macon does challenge for this title as warm-hearted orangutan historian Raka. Serkis’s singular commanding presence is missed, though, with the difficult question of what this now very mocap-heavy franchise looks like without him not definitively answered yet.

The effects aren’t just a boon for the actors – the punchy action sequences really benefit too, with chases, climbs, battles, and floods all hitting as hard as they do thanks to this sterling CG. In fact, it’s whenever the CG dissipates that Kingdom is on less solid ground – Freya Allan’s Mae is not a well-written or acted character, honestly less convincing most of the time than the pixelated chimpanzees she’s interacting with. For reasons not to be spoiled, though, these frustrations do really pay off come the last act, which is where Kingdom finally develops a truly distinct identity from the Caesar films.

Following up any movie with the bolshiness to say ‘what if we mixed Apocalypse Now with Enemy at the Gates but starring chimps’ is going to be a struggle to really leave your mark, and Kingdom lacks that fearless darkness (though, grading on the current blockbuster curve, it’s still harsh enough) that allowed Reeves to really make the series his own. Ball’s take is friendlier, even a bit videogame-y, but as an entry point for newcomers, as well as a launchpad for the further inevitable sequels (of which apparently five more are planned), it lays a solid and fun foundation for the future of this most irrepressible series.

3/5

Directed by Wes Ball

Written by Josh Friedman

Starring; Owen Teague, Kevin Durand, Freya Allan

Runtime: 145 mins

Rating: 12