My Thoughts on "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes"
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Of the movies that came out this year involving tyrannical ape kings this year, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is the still the best. Nah, just kidding 😄, this movie is pretty good too. It's pretty well made. But, I would still say that Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is still my favorite of the two movies. You can go read my review on it to know my full thoughts on it.
I should also note too that this is the second time that a Planet of the Apes movie has been released the same year as a Godzilla movie. The first time was Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the second film in the reboot series, in what some people call the "Caesar trilogy" since it was still just a trilogy until this movie, Kingdom came out. It was released in 2014, the same year of course as Godzilla (2014). This is also a post-apocalyptic movie. The reboot Planet of the Apes movies became post-apocalyptic movies after Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
Rise is the only one in this current series that isn't. It's a prelude to the apocalypse since it shows the origin of the intelligent apes as well as the origin of the Simian Flu which pretty much ended human civilization. Wiping out the majority of the human race, before mutating and causing the remaining humans it infected (which was pretty much all of them) to lose their ability to speak and lose their intelligence to the point where they just acted like animals. Acting purely on instinct with no higher thought or sentience.
Pretty much resulting in apes replacing humanity as the dominant species on Earth 🌎. Yes, I know, humans are technically apes too (we are primates), but what I'm referring to as apes and what this franchise refers to as apes are the non-human great apes: your chimpanzees, your bonobos, your gorillas 🦍, your orangutans 🦧. Those are the apes that became intelligent and replaced humans as the dominant species after they were exposed to the ALZ-113 drug, the same drug that Simian Flu came from since it was a viral-based drug.
The drug was administered and delivered to the body by a virus, virotherapy, which is a real thing in science and medicine, using viruses to deliver drugs to the body. Geneticists have even explored the idea of using viruses in genetic engineering by hijacking viruses' ability to infect cells and use them to create copies of themselves, and using that ability to alter the DNA 🧬 of an organism. That's what geneticists have said that's how CRISPR-Cas9 would be delivered into human cells to edit human DNA 🧬. Something like that. I'm probably not explaining it entirely right, but that's sort of the idea. The point is that the ALZ-113 was a viral-based drug and virotherapy is a real thing in science and medicine.
At least, initial group of apes that were led by Caesar were. He exposed them to the drug, and that's how they became intelligent and eventually gained the ability to speak. All other apes encountered in War for the Planet of the Apes became intelligent likely because they were exposed the Simian Flu from humans since that virus presumably has the ability to jump species. Though, obviously the virus has different effects on humans than it does on apes. The virus makes apes smarter and gives them the ability to speak, while it makes humans dumber and takes away their ability to speak.
And obviously, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes takes place over 300 years after the events of the Caesar trilogy, so it's even more of a post-apocalyptic movie than even those movies were since humanity is on its last legs. All of the cities are abandoned and have decayed, being overgrown with plants. Nature reclaimed all of the areas that humans had once developed for their own purposes. Just like in that History Channel show, Life After People.
The human population in the world has declined dramatically due to the Simian Flu, and what humans are left are nothing like what their ancestors were like in centuries prior. Much more primitive, much more animal-like, and lacking many of the traits that humans of the 20th and early 21st century had. They've been reduced to foragers and scavengers. While the apes have become much more advanced in the 300 years after War.
They can now speak in complete sentences, though it is still kind of broken and fragmented the way they speak, though as much in Dawn or War. They do also still speak in sign language, some of them, but I wasn't able to read what they said because the subtitles on Hulu covered up the subtitles for the sign language. They have fully fledged villages and tribes built out of the remnants of man made structures, they wear some clothing, at least, Proximus's faction does, and they have organized religion, with Caesar having been turned into a messianic figure that the main villain, Proximus uses to legitimize his rule, and to control the apes that he has conquered over the years.
He claims that he's descended from Caesar, that he's his rightful heir, and that he is the ideological custodian and promulgator of his teachings. That is why he calls himself, Proximus Caesar. But, the reality is that Proximus is just a fraudulent tyrant who is using Caesar's name, image, and teachings as propaganda tools to indoctrinate the apes under his control, to create a cult of personality, and to justify any aggressive action he takes towards humans or any other apes.
So, we had two post-apocalyptic movies this year in the month of May. This movie came out the same month as Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, a sort-of reboot of the Mad Max series and another critically acclaimed movie of the 2010s. I don't know how this movie stacks up compared to that movie because I haven't seen it. I haven't seen Furiosa. I've seen Fury Road, but not Furiosa. I don't have a lot of interest in watching it since I wasn't the biggest fan of Fury Road.
I enjoyed fine enough when I saw it in theaters I guess, but I didn't really have a strong love or passion for that I wanted to watch it again or that I can consider myself a fan. It was a one time movie for me. So obviously, I had no interest in watching a prequel to it. Even if that prequel was the one of the most highly anticipated movies of this year. Besides this movie of course, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Still, Furiosa did have an awesome trailer, not going to lie. Just the teaser trailer though, I didn't care for the trailers that came after.
The basic plot surrounds this young chimp named Noa (Owen Teague), who's the member of a tribe of apes living in the outskirts of the ruined San Francisco, which has long since been overgrown and become a massive rainforest of sorts. He's trying to collect himself an eagle egg 🥚, so he can hatch it, and raise it. This tribe tames and works with eagles 🦅, which is why they're often referred to as the "Eagle Clan 🦅," and it's considered some rite of passage if a member of this tribe can raise their own eagle 🦅 as a chick until it's an adult and a companion that accompanies them wherever they go.
One day, Noa encounters a human woman ♀︎ both in the San Francisco forest and in the village, and that ultimately lures in Proximus's faction who are trying to look for this human for some reason. We don't know yet why they're after this woman ♀︎, we just know that they're after her. They attack Noa's village, kill his father, and take everyone else prisoner, and it's up to Noa to try to free them.
Along the way, he meets a wise old orangutan named Raka (Peter Macon) who follows the teachings of Caesar, and claims to be the true custodian of his teachings, unlike Proximus and his faction, who he sees as anathema to Caesar's teachings and who he sees as blasphemers who twist his words to suit their selfish goals. The two team up as they've been wronged by Proximus's apes, and need to get something out of this, some kind of catharsis. That's when they meet up with the same human woman ♀︎ that Noa encountered earlier, and was arguably the cause of all of this, and we come to learn that her name is Mae (Freya Allan), though Raka initially gives her the name, "Nova."
The two are shocked when they find out that Mae is not only intelligent, but can actually speak 😧. They have never heard a human speak in their entire lives, and always believed that humans were stupid and were incapable of speech. However, they all end up getting captured by Proximus's apes, and they're brought to this ship wreck sitting on a beach somewhere in the Bay Area, which Proximus has turned into a palace, a palace for his ape kingdom.
That's why he kidnapped Noa's clan, and many other ape clans, so that they can be apart of his kingdom, after likely being inspired to build one by learning more about humans and learning about their history, particularly Roman history from this other human he managed to capture, Trevathan (William H. Macy), who pretty much holds prisoner and uses a servant of sorts. All Trevathan does is read him books 📖, and teach him about humanity.
Trevathan is fine with this because he's completely given up on the notion that humanity will ever on top ever again, and has accepted the idea that it is apes' time. Better to be subordinate to them than to be killed by them in a bloody struggle 🩸. So, it's up to Noa and Mae to not only free the other apes, but also prevent Proximus from unlocking a vault that may contain weapons and technology that would be very dangerous in the hands of someone like Proximus.
It's actually a pretty simple plot. I mean, I guess War had a simple plot too, since it was about this rogue faction of humans that attack Caesar's tribe and kill his family, and Caesar and the surviving apes pursuing them to get revenge on them for attacking them and killing their loved ones. But, like I said, I've never seen War, and the last Planet of the Apes film that I saw before this one was Dawn, and Dawn actually had a pretty convoluted and complex plot from what I remember.
The only things I remember about the plot of Dawn is that it involved a dam that this group of humans want access to, and they come into contact with Caesar's tribe, and there being some friction between them due to mistrust, especially since the lead human tries to use Caesar and the apes in order to get to this dam. Then, Koba turns against Caesar, leading what amounts to a rebellion or a coup against him, and then attacks those humans with the apes he managed to rally to his side, starting a war that could've been avoided had Koba not betrayed Caesar and had he not let his hatred of human and violent tendencies get the better of him, and it's up to Caesar to kill Koba, and clean up the mess that he made.
Though, given the next movie has the word "War" in the title, and is about a war between humans and apes breaking out, I think it's safe to say that he didn't succeed in the latter and only succeeded in the former. Dawn ends with the understanding that there would be further conflict between humans and apes, despite Caesar's best efforts to avoid it. Though I learned fairly recently that some of the apes that joined Koba in his insurrection against Caesar, and started a war with the humans, actually ended up joining the humans because they were afraid of Caesar's reprimanding them for their treachery.
So, it was cool and probably smart for them to go with a pretty simple plot for Kingdom, given that it's the first post-Caesar film of the reboot Planet of the Apes franchise, and it's kind of meant to kick off its own series of films. More on that later. It works as good reintroduction to this world after we had been away from it for 6 years after War was released.
For me, it had been longer since Dawn was the last Planet of the Apes movie I had ever seen up until this point, and like I said, that movie came out in 2014, so it had been 10 years for me. And after watching this movie, I think I now have the confidence I need to finally watch War. I don't know if I'll review it for my blog, but I will watch. Maybe if I walk away from it feeling like something to say about it I will, but I'm not sure yet.
Though really to be honest, I will say that you really don't need to have watched the Caesar trilogy films to understand what happens in this one. It opens with some text that gives you the basic gist of the backstory, and then the main events of the films are not really all that connected to the previous films. For the mot part, it is a self-contained story. Not a stand alone movie since it's a setup movie, but a self-contained one.
But, if you have seen the previous films, I'm sure this will be a lot more rewarding for you as you get to see how this world progressed and changed, how much more advanced ape society became in the years after Caesar's death, and you'll understand and appreciate some of the references to those previous movies, which is mostly limited to the stuff involving Caesar and his teachings.
This movie, despite how self-contained is, deals a lot with Caesar's legacy. It's all about his teachings, and who's really the proper custodian of them, and who follows them correctly, and it's about how his teachings have either been forgotten or have been disordered for nefarious purposes. In some ways, the secondary conflict beneath the main conflict of Noa trying to free his clan from Proximus's control, is an ideological struggle between Proximus and Raka, despite the fact that those two characters never meet each other on screen. That's likely why Proximus had Raka's group, the Order of Caesar or the Keepers of Caesar, I don't remember the exact name, killed. They were a threat to Proximus's legitimacy as a leader because he based a lot of his legitimacy based on his relation to Caesar and being the custodian of his teachings.
But, one thing that I expected this movie to do that it didn't was explore the actual genetic heritage of Caesar. Like, was Proximus his descendant or not? The movie never says. As far as I can tell, Caesar is just a title that Proximus bestowed upon himself to make himself sound more regal and more all encompassing. Kind of the name Kahn in the Mortal Kombat games. Kahn is just a title that every ruler of Outworld is given, which is why when Mileena becomes the new ruler of Outworld after Shao Kahn's death in the first reboot timeline, her name is Mileena Kahnum. Kahnum is the female version of Kahn ♀︎.
But, going into this, I expected the question over Proximus's heritage to play a part in the story, and I expected them to reveal at some point that Noa was the real descendant of Caesar after he and the other apes discover his true heritage, and Proximus is definitively proven to be a fraud. I expected maybe, Proximus would be revealed to be descendant of Koba since he looks a lot more like him than he does Caesar, and he has much the same mentality as Koba.
In fact, before the movie came out, one of the comments underneath one of the trailers, clips, or promotional behind-the-scenes featurettes, said that Proximus was pretty much Koba if he had succeeded, if his rebellion against Caesar had worked, and he had taken over. But, no that never happens in this movie. There's no discussion over Caesar's lineage, and who's truly his descendant. We're just left to speculate.
They might still reveal this later on, if this movie does indeed get a sequel, and we might get a definitive answer over whether Noa is a descendant of Caesar or not. Because he looks a lot like Caesar. In fact, when I first saw the thumbnail to the first initial trailer, I thought it actually was Caesar because I hadn't seen War, so I didn't know that Caesar had died, and this movie took place in the distant future.
I mean, Noa is kind of a successor to Caesar in a way because he takes a very similar leadership role as he did at the end of this movie, where he's this more benevolent ape who's leading the apes through respect and compassion rather than through fear and corrosion, and is trying to protect them from humans, while also trying to avoid conflict with humans, if and whenever possible.
And just like Caesar, Noa still holds out some hope that one day, humans and apes can coexist in peace without any hatred or violence. But, it's not the same as actually being a descendant of Caesar. They made Noa look so much like Caesar that it can't be accident, I'm not convinced of that. They had do to have done it for a reason, and if they didn't, and Noa isn't descended from Caesar, I'll be pretty disappointed.
I really did enjoy this movie. I think a big part of my enjoyment of this movie came from seeing our world through the eyes of non-human characters. Like, how world has been destroyed, our civilization has ended hundreds of years ago, and these other creatures are living within it or they're visiting it for the time, and learning all about it. Whether it's aliens, robots, or in this case, apes.
It's so interesting to see what they would think of all of our buildings, all of our technology, all of our knowledge, and entertainment without knowing the context behind it, without having humans there to be able to tell the names of these things and what they were and what they were used for. It's an ancient history that they're uncovering basically, the way archeologists today uncover artifacts and monuments from the distant past. It's a trope that I really like.
I enjoyed a lot of those moments in NieR: Automata where 2B and 9S are exploring the post-apocalyptic city that became overgrown with plants and turned into a forest, kind of like San Francisco in this movie, and they're just seeing these old remnants of human civilization and not really understanding what they were used for. Like, in the first half of the game, they visit the amusement park, and they're all confused about why humans would build such a place. That's all great. It's pretty thought provoking, and it makes you think just how weird some of the stuff we've invented over our relatively short time on this planet 🌎.
We're a young species geologically speaking, we haven't been around anywhere near as long as the dinosaurs were back in their heyday, and yet we've built so many great things, and a lot of those things we built or created that we enjoyed would be confused to an outside observer who knew nothing about us, and was seeing our civilization (or rather, what's left of it in those two cases) for the first time without the benefit of having humans around to explain what all of these things are, what they're used for, and why we built them.
I even like this trope whenever it's done with future humans, humans so distant in the future or humans so detached and cut off from the modern world by an apocalypse that when they see things from our time, they're confused by it, and wondering what it is, and why it was even invented. They even come up with their own names for them.
Kind of like how the apes in this movie, or at least, the ones from Noa's clan refer to humans as "Echoes" likely because humans can only repeat what's been told to them by the apes like a parrot 🦜. But, if that's the case, then the apes have heard humans speak, so Noa shouldn't be that surprised that Mae spoke in that moment because as far as he would've been concerned, that was the only word she would've known how to say. Besides maybe Raka's name since he told her his name too. I don't know, we never find out why they call them "Echoes," they just do.
But, I do like that they call them Echoes. It makes sense because it's been 300 years since the fall of human civilization in this movie's world, and these apes have never known a world where apes weren't smart and couldn't talk, and where human weren't dumb and mute. They would have no context, they would have no reason to call them humans, so they came up with their own name for them. Just like any other sentient being would if they lived on a post-apocalyptic Earth 🌎 and had no prior knowledge of the world that came before, and knew what humans called themselves.
It's only until Noa meets Raka that Noa himself starts calling them Echoes. But, it does beg question though, why is it they know to call other animals by the names humans came up with like birds 🦅 and horses 🐎, and yet they don't know to call humans by the name they came up for themselves?
Speaking of which, I probably should talk about the characters. I did like all of the characters in this movie for the most part, both human and ape. I wasn't that on board with Noa with at first because he seemed kind of bland to me, but he grew on me over time. You just feel for him and his plight, as he really just wants to rescue his clan from these asshole apes who kidnapped them and forced them to be apart of his kingdom. I didn't even mind Mae. I know some people probably didn't like her all that much, but I thought she was fine.
She does do some morally questionable things in this movie, like when she blows the dam, and floods the vault, putting Noa's entire clan in jeopardy but it wasn't enough for me to hate her necessarily since she did do it to prevent Proximus from getting his hands on all the weapons that were stored in the vault, so it was a little forgivable. And it's not like her and Noa completely patch things up, and are all best buds or anything like that. They do still go their separate ways, with the understanding that conflict between humans and apes may continue, though both still walk away with the hope that peaceful coexistence can still happen one day.
Trevathan was this great slimy, smarmy little douchebag who was working for Proximus, basically became his pet, and is only kept alive by him and the other apes because of his knowledge of humanity prior to the collapse. He's a man ♂︎ that's completely given up, and has taken the path of least resistance as an act of self-preservation. He tries to rat Noa and Mae out to Proximus, when they—along with Noa's friends, Soona and Anaya—try to set charges along the dam in order to blow it up as part of their plan to free the Eagle Clan 🦅. But, Mae kills him and they just toss his body into the ocean. He worked as a minor antagonist in my opinion.
But, by far my favorite character in this whole movie was Raka. He was such a great character. He was both cool and happy, the wise old sage, the kind of character that you want on your team. He's the reason why Noa changes his perspective on humans, and how he grows into the leader that he has to be in order to save his clan. I wished that he survived for a lot longer, and perhaps even got to confront Proximus, but his death did serve as a way of raising stakes, emphasizing how much of a threat Proximus and his faction are, and giving Noa even more motivation to oppose Proximus and being his empire crumbling to the ground.
Speaking of which, that finally brings me to Proximus himself. The interesting about Proximus is a lot of the movie's marketing was centered around him. Like nearly all of the trailers, all of the sneak peeks, some of the posters, and behind-the-scene featurettes focused a lot on him rather than on Noa or any of the good guy characters. This is the first time in the series where the marketing had put much more emphasis on the main antagonist rather than the main protagonist, which had been Caesar up until this point. It's perfectly understandable why they emphasized him so much because Proximus is a pretty great villain. He's both fascinating and intimidating.
There's this interesting dichotomy with him where he both hates humans, but also kind of admires them, or at least, admires what they've built. Like, he specifically admires the Roman Empire, and modeled his kingdom after the Romans, and styled himself as a Roman emperor. Pretty much taking the whole Caesar thing completely literally, as he not only took the ape, Caesar's name and uses his teachings to create a cult of personality for himself, but he also wants to essentially be the ape version of Julius Caesar. BTW, did you know the word "tsar" is derived from the Latin word for Caesar? So, Caesar being a title isn't as far fetched as you might think. And he basically wants apes to be able to do the same things, as he believes it is apes' time to shine and humans' time has passed. It's time for them to step aside, and let apes take control, which they mostly have at this point.
But, his fascination with humans, their history, their culture, and their technology kind of lead him to become like them in a way where he twists the words of a much revered historical figure, and uses them to serve his own ends, and justify his own tyrannical rule and justify his own heinous acts. Some of the worst tyrants and despots throughout history have done a lot of the things that Proximus has done, and in some cases, even worse. It's so fascinating to see an ape emulate and follow such a human behavior. Plus, I thought his voice was pretty cool. Kevin Durand definitely did a good job with the performance.
The movie is pretty slow paced, it is a slow burn, like we don't even see Proximus on screen until after the halfway point, until after the second act ends and the third act begins. And even then, he isn't on screen for very long. He probably has like 5 or 10 minutes worth of screen time tops. But, despite how slow this movie is, and how long it takes to get to the really good stuff, I was never bored. I was thoroughly engaged for most of this movie, and there wasn't a dull moment despite how slow paced it is, and how long it is. This movie is 145 minutes long, which is the same length as Independence Day, and yet, just like Independence Day, it never feels as long as it actually is. I actually thought it was a lot shorter than it was before I started writing this review.
It does set up a sequel, where Mae reaches this human settlement, this underground bunker type of place, and it's revealed that there are humans living underground who were not affected by the Simian Flu, and have been looking for other survivors all this time, hoping that they weren't the only ones left. And Mae gives them this piece of technology, this hard drive looking thing, that gives them the ability to send a message out there, and there manage to contact some other human right away.
There's a lot of places they could possibly go with that setup, including further confrontation between humans and apes, but I wouldn't mind either if this movie never gets a followup because it does work as standalone film, as one last entry in the reboot Planet of the Apes series that acts a swan song. But, they are going to make more, since it was received pretty positively by critics, and it was a box office success. I'm just wondering if they're ever going to follow up on that Icarus setup that was planted all the way back in Rise.
In Rise, they very briefly reference the Icarus spaceship from the original 1968 film, the one that George Taylor (Charlton Heston's character in that movie) arrives on the post-apocalyptic ape-controlled Earth 🌎 on. And yet, none of the films made after Rise have followed up on that, including this one. So, I'm wondering if this movie does end up kicking off a trilogy of its own, will any of these future movies bring up the Icarus spacecraft?
Will we see it crash land on Earth 🌎, and we see the crew's reactions to returning to a devastated Earth 🌎 reclaimed by nature and ruled by intelligent apes, and humans that either hiding underground or have been infected with a virus that decreases their intelligence and takes away their ability to speak, or at least speak in complete sentences? It would be a disappointing for them never to follow up on that, in a series that so far has pretty good continuity.
It will probably get nominated at the Oscar’s for Best Visual Effects, and it probably win. It’ll probably be a toss up between it and Dune: Part Two. I’m sure Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga will get nominated, but that movie had some pretty dodgy CGI according to critics and regular fans and moviegoers who saw it, so it probably won’t win. I would love it if Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire was nominated for Best Visual Effects, but there’s no guarantee that it will. There’s a good chance that it won’t because it isn’t “a respectable film” or it’s an “unrefined film.”
I know, it’s stupid right? Because this how the people who decide these things at the Oscar’s think. That’s why I think Furiosa" will get nominated over Godzilla x Kong even if Furiosa has worse CGI than Godzilla x Kong because Furiosa is just prestige enough to be in consideration for Oscar nominations, but it’s also stupid and trashy enough to be a dumb fun cult film that people who like weird cult movies can turn their brains 🧠 off and enjoy. Whereas Godzilla x Kong is just “dumb fun,” and is not prestige at all.
Yeah, yeah, I know, people always say that Mad Max: Fury Road and Furiosa have ‘deeper themes,’ and are actually really smart, but come on, they aren’t that smart. George Miller and the critics are just messing with you on that. These are not the intelligent movies they’re often made out to be by film snobs in the film essay community on YouTube and elsewhere. The “deep themes” in Fury Road and presumably Furiosa too are about a deep as the “deep themes” in Godzilla x Kong. At least there’s no chance in hell that Argylle will get nominated for Best Visual Effects or any category at the Oscar’s. If anyone even still remembers that movie and remembers that it came out in 2024.
This is completely unrelated, but I’m pretty sure that Inside Out 2 will not only be nominated for Best Animated Picture but will win. It was one of the biggest movies of the year, possibly the biggest, it grossed $1.507 billion 💵, that’s billion with a b, in matter of weeks, and it became the second highest grossest animated film of all time, knocking Frozen II ❄️ out of that previous spot and down into third place. The 2019 "live action" Lion King 🦁 movie still remains the highest animated movie of all time with a box office gross of $1.663 billion 💵.
The fact that movie is even under this category and is even in this list shows that the label that Disney slapped on it, ‘live action remake’ was a complete lie. There’s nothing live action about The Lion King 🦁 (2019), it is an animated film. But, Inside Out 2 is still in theaters by the time of me writing this, so by the time I write my review(s) and post them, that box office total might be higher, and it might dethrone The Lion King 🦁 (2019) as the highest grossing animated film of all time.
I hope it does because even though Inside Out 2 is an unnecessary sequel, and didn’t really have much of a reason to exist beyond just money 💵, The Lion King 🦁 (2019) is even less deserving of being the highest grossing animated film of all time. A completely pointless cash grab remake 🤑 that pretended to be live action when really it was completely animated. It just had a different kind of animation compared to the original 1994 movie. And on top of that hardly anyone even liked it 👎, while everyone seems to like Inside Out 2 😍. I can’t for the life of me figure out why, but they do.
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