A little review of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes brings audiences back to the exciting fantasy world of the Planet of the Apes movie franchise.

Planet of the Apes is a famous Hollywood science fiction film with nearly 60 years of history, earning more than 2 billion USD at the box office (not including inflation factors). In particular, the films of this franchise hold a remarkable record of never losing money when released in theaters. These works even achieve revenue ten times greater than the capital spent by the manufacturer. After many years of absence, the movie franchise with the idea of a world dominated by apes has returned with the latest installment - Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes released on May 10.

The script of this film is set several hundred years after the events of War for the Planet of the Apes (2017). At this time, Caesar had long passed away and the apes seemed to have lost their wise leader. Thanks to the virus affecting human intelligence, they became the dominant species on Earth. However, monkeys are divided into small tribes, living without solidarity with each other.

In that situation, a monkey calling himself Proximus Caesar (played by Kevin Durand) distorted Caesar's ideas with the dream of building a powerful kingdom for monkeys. He sent troops everywhere to capture other monkey tribes as slaves and find ways to restore human technology with the desire to help his species evolve faster.

Also because of that plan, Proximus Caesar's army killed Noah's father (Owen Teague) - a monkey from the Eagle tribe. He decided to set out to take revenge and rescue his mother as well as other members of the village who were being enslaved. On that journey, he accidentally meets the orangutan Raka (Peter Macon) - the last member of Caesar's Society and a mysterious girl named Mae (Freya Allen).

Noah was told stories about Caesar by Raka and gradually understood how Proximus Caesar distorted his ideas to seize power. Meanwhile, Mae silently follows the two monkeys with a special plot to restore humanity's position on the planet.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes uses the familiar idea of a dystopian world, where humans lose control and things become unstable. The reign of the apes was full of dictatorship and violence, pushing civilization back to the dark ages of slavery. Director Wes Ball (author of the Maze Runner trilogy) spends a lot of time on scenes depicting this ruined but still beautiful world.

The film crew also worked hard to build monkey tribes with their own cultures and customs. There also exists a division of labor and class between individuals. Noah's tribe are monkeys with a special talent for communicating and giving orders to eagles. This characteristic also helps the main character stand out in a world full of animals with relatively similar appearances. These elements also help Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes take on the color of an epic genre work, recalling important milestones in the development of human civilization.

The stage of character building was also done quite well by the film crew. The main character Noah is a talented, upright and brave young monkey. The orangutan Raka is reminiscent of the character Maurice of the previous series, a wise and calm character who is a great help to Ceasar. In particular, Proximus is a quite interesting villain who possesses superior speaking skills compared to monkeys and a desire to conquer new heights in the history of civilization.

One of the biggest highlights of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the visuals. The film crew used motion-capture, with live actors simulating the monkeys' actions to create realistic and dynamic effects. Facial expressions are also significantly improved compared to previous films, when individual monkeys express emotions more clearly and in detail. When watching the movie, many viewers will think of the special effects stage of the famous blockbuster Avatar: The Way of Water by director James Cameron in terms of the level of feat.

In previous films, the crew often prioritized using narrow focal length lenses to show off the authenticity of the monkey characters. Meanwhile, director Wes Ball actively increased the number of wide-angle shots to fully depict the beauty of the planet under the domination of a new primate species. At the same time, the crew also prioritized exterior segments to increase the authenticity of the work.

It's quite a pity that Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes doesn't have as many impressive action sequences as the previous parts. Most of the film's scenes are more narrative in nature and describe the context, which partly causes the film's flow to proceed quite slowly in the first two acts. Meanwhile, the final act happened too quickly, leading to many viewers feeling disappointed because of the somewhat quick ending.

Besides, the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes scenario is also built quite safely and does not have too many impressive climaxes. Many details in the film are still quite sketchy, opening and closing inappropriately. The lack of human characters also makes the story of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes quite slow, taking a long time to get to the main story. The work has many logical gaps, especially revolving around the actions of the human character - Mae. However, the filmmaking team seems to want to leave the topic open to stimulate the audience's curiosity to continue following the story in the following parts.

Scoring: 3/5

Overall, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a relatively fulfilling sequel, promising to open exciting new chapters for the Planet of the Apes brand. The visuals and special effects are impressive, but director Wes Ball still seems to be quite inexperienced in storytelling and climax building like Matt Reeves, especially in integrating social criticism messages - an important factor that creates the appeal of this series.