Against the passage of time, heroes are not static figures. They are shaped by myth, by reputation, by politics; they are moulded to suit new purposes and agendas as their real moral and mortal character is reduced to the mere legend, what they stood for obscured. Across history countless souls have died in the name of a man who preached love and empathy. A single phrase from a single speech by a revolutionary has been misappropriated by agents of bigotry, intentionally clouding his most radical philosophies. And the worlds these figures aim to bring about don’t come to the utopias they envision.
When War for the Planet of the Apes ended on the serene death of Caesar, the great liberator and saviour of ape-kind, there didn’t appear to be much left to tell. All the pieces were in place to connect this story to that of the original 1968 film to take place centuries later. The origin of the Planet of the Apes was effectively complete. But drawing that line is a very easy thing to do, and the crucial thing that the makers of the new Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes did, was ask what is the fruit of Caesar’s legacy? Of his own icon and the world that he created -a world still very much rife in the tension between apes, and between ape and human.
The film is directed by Wes Ball from a screenplay by Josh Friedman, and is as much a reboot as it is sequel to that earlier trilogy -given it is set three centuries later on a more evolved, feudal planet of the apes and with a whole new cast of characters. It is much closer to the world we saw in that classic entry, but still quite far from the sophistication and functional mechanics of that civilization. It’s still a world in the midst of its development, but remade entirely from the one that we recognize.
Ball puts to rest right away the preceding movies by opening on the funeral for Caesar and the signs of the beginning of his legend and religious-like adulation. But the movie then touches down ‘many generations later’ on a sequestered tribe in the vicinity of two antiquated electrical towers called the Eagle Clan, who have formed a culture around their relationship to falcons. Following a rite of passage for Noa (Owen Teague), son of the clan-leader, their home is laid siege by a group of raider apes, who torch it, kidnap most of the clan, and kill Noa’s father. Obviously, Noa embarks on a mission of rescue and vengeance -while being tailed by an ‘Echo’, a young human woman (Freya Allan), whom he had briefly encountered.
So, extremely basic hero’s journey stuff, but one of the things that makes the set-up so interesting is how naturally the world and these figures are infused with character -from the detail in their cultural mores and language (which is fluent but spoken in a very low, simple cadence) to the subtle inferences towards history and heritage -which are highly important to the themes of this film. Despite how little we see of ape cultures more broadly, the environment feels deep and lived-in, the weight of time is authentically captured -except in one distracting regard.
Contrary to the implications of the last film and original entry of this franchise, there are indeed some humans left who can speak, and Allan's Mae is one of them as revealed in a second act twist. But compared to the apes there's an utter lack of any kind of linguistic evolution apparent. The devastated conditions of their society and culture, proximity to a majority of unintelligent, mute humans, and a span of three hundred years in secretive isolation has apparently not had any impact on speech, sensitivity, instinct, attitude. It's more than just a consistency issue though, Mae and those like her are out of step tonally with everything else in the film -applying a bizarre and knowing modernity to the proceedings of fantasy. It puts a dent in the story's verisimilitude akin to dropping Peter Parker into Lord of the Rings.
There is a vitality she provides though as contrast to Noa and the other apes regarding the role of the past in the present. In fact, everyone's actions, everyone's fates are tied to the manner in which they interpret their heritage, or how they interpret their dogma. Noa's first ally on the journey is the orangutan Raka (Peter Macon), last of a priest-like order whose devotion is rooted in a view of Caesar as a momentous leader and unifier from a humble background, whose teachings of empathy and justice are his singular legacy. By contrast, the autocratic Proximus (Kevin Durand), who has declared himself Caesar, preaches a vision of the founder as a great conqueror and symbol of ape supremacy. And we see how he contextualizes and twists Caesar's legacy to his own ambitions. That cornerstone philosophy, "apes together strong" -it doesn't take much to derive a dangerous meaning from it. Just as it doesn't take much for "judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character" can be applied as a weapon against acknowledging systemic racism. The politicization of the actions and rhetoric of great figures, and the institutions that come of them,in the guise of honouring is the critical point. A deeply resonant one intelligently made.
And the humans, though they don't revere Caesar, are not exempt. Mae clings to an image of an idealized past in the hope that it can be recaptured. She valorizes it, it is what drives her, and she is blind to her own supremacist ideology nurtured by it: humans deserved to rule in that time and deserve to again. It is in direct contrast to William H. Macy's Trevathan, a human Uncle Tom who has accepted complete subservience to another form of supremacism. And in the middle of all of these figures and ideologies is Noa, with no preconceptions either of Casesar or humans; his values only come from his tribe, their traditions, and his fierce loyalty to and protection of them. Noa is pulled in directions by virtually all of these players, even the well-intentioned ones, in an effort to shape an image of history to understand or doctrine to submit to. He feels the pressure, and we do too. This movie keenly understands the power our myths have and why the ways they are interpreted matter. As such it also raises compelling new questions about this universe, about apes and humans -their fundamental desires for dominance, and what that means for what we’ve already seen and what we know is to come.
The motion-capture visual effects for this series have always been distinctly impressive for their time, and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is no exception. The apes all look completely in sync with their world, the level of detail and texture in their digital make-up combined with the authenticity of movement and expression that the motion-capture process entails gives them a much stronger tangibility than most other computer-generated creatures across media. And as in the other films, performances aren't inhibited in the slightest. Teague gives a terrific exemplification of both innocence and lustre, demonstrating a capacity of depth to lead this series through a new era. Macon is revelatory as the mentor figure, in both pathos and a sly humour. But the stand-out is Durand, who brings a strong populist charisma and frightful determination to his villain Proximus. The characters of Noa's immediate friends and family are related impeccably too, his best friends Soona (Lydia Peckham) and Anaya (Travis Jeffery), who have their own arcs and personality, as well as his mother Dar (Sara Wiseman), and wise father Koro (Neil Sandilands).
This movie, a thrilling adventure set against a fascinating world with sharply attuned, interesting and potent ideas on its mind, is a reminder that Planet of the Apes has in the past decade been one of the few genuinely exciting Hollywood franchises -both in terms of what it does and what it says. Kingdom may not be as robust as the last two entries, but it is pretty powerful nonetheless in spite of its spare faults. And it offers a compelling new approach to the franchise overall. The original movie was palpably a dystopia -a radical upending of our comfortable status quo; the 2010s trilogy framed it almost as righteous utopia -with the cruelty and abject domination of humans justifying their own downfall. This movie ultimately questions if it is either. And that is a provocative enough conceit to stir our anticipation for whatever becomes of this Planet of the Apes next.
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