Movie Review: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) directed by Wes Ball

A peaceful group of chimpanzees live raising eagles on the fringes of ape society. Their idyllic life is disrupted by two things: the presence of humans (who are called "echoes" by the chimps) and an attack by gorillas. The gorillas are part of a larger clan trying to unite apes under the memory of Caesar, the main ape from the previous movies. Caesar is long dead and the gorillas have altered Caesar's message to their own ends. Their attack leaves most of the chimps in captivity except for Noa (voiced by Owen Teague), son of the clan leader and a bit of a failure in the eyes of many from the clan, though not his parents. He promises his father to bring the clan back home. Noa is being followed by Nova (Freya Allan), a female human who is more intelligent than other humans. They travel with Raka (voiced by Peter Macon), an orangutang who has a much more accurate history of Caesar. Their journey to the gorilla's home base is one of discovery about their world and themselves.

The plot is reasonably interesting but the storytelling is quite often drawn out. A lot of scenes go on too long and don't seem as important to the narrative as they should be. The whole culture of the eagle-raising chimpanzees is shown, much more than is needed and not very interesting for the viewers. Nova's character is implausible from the beginning, through the middle, and until the very end. She should have an air of mystery but nothing is done for her character before the last scenes. And the more you think about it after the movie, the less plausible her actions are. Noa is a cliched character at the start, the bumbling young boy with ambition to live up to his dad's expectations. He is smart enough to grow through the film and comes off more as a person than any other character. The cast overall isn't bad, it's just the material they have is not enough, even with the extended down-time between action sequences. The movie needs some tightening up in the editing and a bit more work on the characters.

Mildly recommended for Planet of the Apes fans, not for anyone else.