Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
I love the entire series beginning all the way back in the 60s. Some of my favorite toys as a kid were the Planet of the Apes figures - Cornelius, Zira, Zaius, Galen, Ursus - that I sometimes allowed to take Evel's place on the bike when it made some of its jumps. (Anybody see any significance to those names for Kaos?)
Just forget the Walberg Aperham Lincoln one, it doesn't exist. That aside, there are parallels between the current group of films and the original set. Both are hit or miss.
The 1968 original borders on masterpiece. Love the movie. One of my favorite, and best, Halloween makeups ever was when I created a Cornelius/Caesar silicone mask. It was - quite honestly - amazing.
After that though? Beneath the Planet of the Apes was meh. Escape turned it around, and was legitimately fantastic. Conquest dropped the ball and wasn't good. Then that series closed with Battle which was, again, pretty great.
The new series kinda follows a similar pattern. The original in the reboot, Rise (misnamed) wasn't really that good and I had my doubts. Then came Dawn which restored my faith and was really quite well done. After that came War, which I didn't care for all that much.
Now, seven years after War, we get Kingdom. It's back to pretty great again.
First the question: Given that it's seven years since the last installment, do I need to go back and watch War so I'm not lost in the plot? NO! Kingdom takes place three centuries after that film and only barely references it. So you're good.
In the 300 years since War, the apes have kind of messed things up. Rather than uniting as Caesar intended, they've split into various clans that don't work well with each other. Some still proclaim to carry Caesar's message, but they've perverted it.
This movie follows Noa, a member of a clan that trains falcons, and the son of the clan leader. His clan is overrrun by gorillas taking slaves, and (kinda like Beastmaster) he's the only one left. He goes on a trek to liberate his group and bring them home.
Along the way he runs into an orangutan, the last keeper of Caesar's true word, and some surprisingly chatty humans as he eventually confronts the leader of the gorilla clan Proximus.
There are some great callbacks along the way. Not really easter eggs, but worthy nods to the original including the Forbidden Zone, the underground subway with human signs, the "mama" doll, Nova, and many more. That was great in and of itself.
The CGI has really come together. It doesn't take long before you forget you're not watching actual apes act their roles on screen. They're real characters just as if they were humans.
The ending worked for me, too, even though there were aspects of it from the human side that seemed sort of sketchy overall. The only real complaint I had was that how - after 300 years - can you waltz into some abandoned human facility, flip a couple of switches, and all the lights and power come back on? Come on, that's LAZY storytelling.
I keep wondering how or if they'll eventually tie this thing back to Taylor and his "get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape" storyline. There are enough unanswered questions from this film to set up a few more in the future. If we have one.
Note: For those keeping score? I've been mostly positive about a bundle of movies in a row, including one with Nic Cage. Perhaps I'm mellowing?
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