Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)

Medium Spoilers

'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' is the 4th in Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silvers reboot of the 1960's and 70's film franchise about a future Earth ruled over by talking apes. Conceived as a trilogy of trilogies following human and ape characters over the course of generations, 'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' begins its second trilogy, though given its underperformance at the box office its an open question whether we'll ever see the conclusion of this Saga.

Set "many generation"s" after the events of the first trilogy, which saw apes get smart and humans get dumb as the result of a mutating virus. Our lead characters is Noah (Owen Teague) a young ape living in a village of apes who train hawks to hunt for them, located not far from the ruins of Los Angeles, California. There is a lot of plot here but surfice it to say a tribe of agreesive apes decimate and carry away the survivors of Noah's villiage, he alone escaping. On his quest to free his family and friends Noah runs across an orangutan monk named Raka (Peter Macon, who at first I thought was Samuel L. Jackson) and an unusually bright young human woman they name Nova (Freya Allen, who was born 5 days before 9/11, thus making me feel old). The pair of apes are really surprised when they learn that this mere human can talk, her name is Mae and that she is not the only human capable of speech.

The rest of the movie revolves around Noah's quest to free his people from Proximus Ceaser (Kevin Durand), a nefarious ape trying to build his Kingdom, and Mae's mysterious mission to recovery a valuable remnant from human civilization. 

This film is VERY good. Well paced, interesting characters, intriguing ideas, engaging action sequences. There are also alot of Easter eggs to previous Planet of the Apes films spread throughout. Of course we have alegorucal  comments on human short comings, these films both old and new are good at bringing those out. Such as how the original Ceaser's (Andy Serkis) teachings of love and co existence have been perverted by later "followers" into an ideological of conquest and hate; more then a  little on the nose, but I still like it.

Each of the films in this current series keeps improving on the others and I think 'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' is the best done and most intriguing of these films since the 1968 original. A near flawless screenplay where everything pays off, and a engrossing movie watching experience. I'm going there and giving 'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' ****