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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the fourth and newest addition of the rebooted Planet of the Apes franchise.
Kingdom takes place around 300 years after the death of Caesar, the eponymous leader of the apes in the first three movies. We follow an ape by the name of Noa, played in motion capture by Owen Teague as he sets on an adventure to rescue his clan and uncover secrets along the way.
Accompanying Noa is a human named Mae, played by Freya Allen of The Witcher TV series fame.
As with the three previous instalments in the franchise, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes boasts some of the best computer-generated imagery (CGI) and visual effects (VFX) that you’ll witness on the big screen this year. The motion capture technology used surpasses anything that other major movie studios have used recently.
And it’s not just that the movement of the actors are convincingly converted into ape-like movements, it’s also the fact that they’ve managed to convey the appropriate emotions on the CGI-ape faces too.
One thing that is lacking this time around, however, is the emotional core of the movie.
With the original trilogy of movies, we were following the story of Caesar from a simple ape to the ruler of all ape-kind. We identified with him, and understood his reasoning. But now that Caesar is dead (spoiler alert in case you haven’t seen the last movie), we are evidently following the story of Noa, and so far we just don’t empathise with his story.
But it’s still early days. According to the studio, they plan to continue Noa’s story for at least another movie. So some more emotional aspects could be seen in the upcoming instalments.
Freya Allen’s Mae is the only human character that we follow for most of the movie and she serves as an important lynchpin in the story. The only confusing aspect is her overall mission.
Verdict: A fun weekend flick if you’re a fan of the Planet of the Apes movies or if you’re into CGI sci-fi epics, but for normal audiences, might as well wait until it comes out on streaming.
Rating: 6/10
Deviprasad Nair
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