Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Review

And to conclude our 'Monkey Movies In Spring' we have Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes god that title sucks. Seriously, why is is not Kingdom of the Apes? Is the word Planet so important to the brand? Whatever, I kinda liked the trailer. I've not seen any other Planet of the Apes movie, but I know about the original because of cultural osmosis and this movie seemed disconnected enough so that I could watch it without seeing the other ones.

What's The Movie About?

After his village is attack and kidnapped, Noa from the Eagle Clan sets off to rescue his people from the a tyrant. Along the way he meets a mysterious human and learns more about the world.

What I Like.

The movie looks really pretty. There's a lot of sweeping landscapes of overgrown ruins and I think they look cool. I also like the world they set-up. Post-apocalyptic societies are something really interesting to me and I thought the apes' societies were interesting. I also liked the ape characters. The way they were speaking was kind of annoying at first, but I got used to it eventually. I also like the tension the humans and apes have at the end of the movie. I mean, it feels like something that will come into play in a sequel, but I didn't mind.

What I Didn't Like.

I feel like this movie had a different script at some point. There's no egregious plot holes or anything, but sometimes the plot pulls a solution out of it's ass, or a scene that feels like it was supposed to lead to something meaningful gets resolved immediately. Also, this is definitely a movie that falls apart if you thing about it. It feels like a lot of information from the  fall of humanity to when this movie takes place has been lost, but not enough time has passed to make that make sense. A lot of this centers around the human character. I don't like the human girl. To risk drifting into spoilers, the only thing she has going for her character is speciesism. Finally, I wished there was more worldbuilding. What little we have is interesting, but also feels like there is a bunch of holes. Noa is from the Eagle Clan, and when he arrives in the titular kingdom he learns that it is comprised of a bunch of clans that the Emperor's goons kidnapped. We never meet the other clans. I don't know what any of them are, and that just feels like a massive missed opportunity.

Final Summation.

This movie's alright. It's okay. It feels like most of the interesting stuff is just in the movie because they want to use it in a sequel, and I'd be interested in checking one out. But I don't think I'd want to watch this movie again until the interesting stuff pays off in that future movie.