The Planet of the Apes franchise is dependable, a safe bet in Hollywood, because our appetite for post-apocalyptic sci-fi is insatiable. Starting with the original in 1968, these films grapple with what can happen when humanity’s thirst for dominance and war goes too far. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the latest film in the franchise and the tenth overall, makes a fundamental miscalculation that many previous entries never did. It does not have any stars. Quality notwithstanding, Apes movies have been led by heavyweights like Charlton Heston, Woody Harrelson and Gary Oldman. Director Wes Ball has no one to lend that same level of credibility, and so his latest has an eerie, lifeless quality. When the conflict is not even clear to the hyper-intelligent apes themselves, suspense drains from all the drama and action.
It has been generations since Caesar, the ape hero played by Andy Serkis in the previous three entries, lived and died. His legacy lives onward through oral traditions, although his message of strength and tolerance can curdle depending on who is telling it. When we meet Noa (Owen Teague), he has almost zero sense of the long conflict between human and ape-kind. Most of his life revolves around the peaceful village where he lives, one where the primary activity is to domesticate eagles so they can help with food-gathering. On the eve before a ceremony where he transitions into adulthood, another tribe of apes strikes Noa’s, taking his friends/family hostage and killing his father along the way. Left with no recourse, Noa leaves to rescue his village, and finds two unlikely allies along the way: an intellectual orangutan named Raka (Peter Macon) and a human named Mae (Freya Allan). Both these companions have their secrets, and Mae’s secrets threaten to upend the order between apes and humans that the former (mostly) take for granted.
Wes Ball and his screenwriter Josh Friedman shift away from the paranoia and anxiety that define the last three Apes films. Instead, they opt for a much more traditional hero’s journey, with Noa rising to the occasion and finding reserves of leadership he did not know he had. That is a reliable structure, one that is older than the franchise itself, and yet Noa’s arc (pun intended) lacks the pull that we might see in Star Wars or Avatar, two films in that same tradition.
Maybe it is a problem with the uncanny valley. These apes are so lifelike, exponentially more than the apes from the 1968 classic, and yet they are not quite so lifelike that they are plausible, distinct individuals. Most of the dialogue is terse shorthand, as many apes lack the language to be articulate, and their expressions lack the nuance to convey any real emotional truth. As the humankind conduit, Allan has a lot to carry on her shoulders, and yet her obscure agenda also means we are not exactly on her side, either. This is precisely where the inclusion of a star, or a terrific motion capture actor like Serkis, could have elevated the material.
The production design of Kingdom imagines a world where most vestiges of humanity have been overrun by greenery. The ape villages are primitive, mostly made of wood with an emphasis on height. Two villages are utterly destroyed over the course of the film, and it is to Ball’s credit that they are appropriately horrific. The ape-on-ape violence has real heft, with a gorilla moving through the scenery with more heft than a chimpanzee or bonobo. But for all its technical wonder, there is something perfunctory, maybe even inert, about all that happens. In the dialogue scenes between the action, Friedman’s script does not draw sharp enough lines between the various factions and how they disagree. The introduction of the film’s villain, a pretentious ape leader named Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), does little to elevate the stakes, let alone distinguish them. There are some clever allusions to the original film, namely in how Ball frames some shots and stages the combat, although that does not help with any real emotional connection. It all moves so much more slowly than the filmmakers intended.
That is not to say, however, that none of the film is compelling. The best stretch of Kingdom happens in the middle, when Noa and his two unlikely companions negotiate the post-apocalyptic forest. In particular, Macon’s performance as Raka is the only one that seems, well, human enough to connect via motion capture. A cross between Dr. Zaius and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Raka gives Noa enough lofty ideas for his rescue to represent an ideal, not a base instinct. Still, that does not translate into a sense of triumph when Noa achieves his goal. In fact, the last act leaves for more questions and answers, a cynical move that only indicates Ball and his screenwriters wish to extend their franchise well beyond this film. The Apes movies are endlessly adaptable, a reliable reflection of whatever ails society at the moment they are made. Their malleability, however, requires a formula that this entry deliberately avoids. No one can ever replace Charlton Heston, of course, but we still need a compelling human foil – flaws and all – to remind us those damn dirty apes are not what they seem.
Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios
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