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A Review of “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)”

 

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The Andy Serkis Planet of the Apes prequel/reboot was one of the most surprisingly enjoyable modern trilogies. The second movie in particular, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, is phenomenal! It was a great conclusion and didn’t need more but when has that stopped Hollywood? The 4th entry no longer has Andy Serkis or director Matt Reeves. It is a whole new beginning of a new trilogy. Does it live up to what was done before?

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Firstly, the film is visually remarkable! In an era where it feels common to see bad CGI, it is just lovely to see a movie where the CG is amazing. It also has great cinematography with a lot of gorgeous-looking shots. The movie being set 300 years after War of the Planet of the Apes, results in some great-looking world design. Seeing these old human landscapes covered in green in the background really showcases the time skip. It is also fun to see as well, such as a Baseball Stadium or shopping mall as places the characters go through. I also appreciate that they don’t acknowledge it because why would they know what a shopping mall is? These locations are for us the audience to appreciate.

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It was also difficult to make a great new protagonist after the amazing Caesar but I find Noa a good new protagonist. He is incredibly likeable and relatable, which is why it was easy to root for him on his quest. Proximus was also a solid villain despite only coming into play in the second half of the movie. He is basically a cult leader who is very charismatic yet menacing. There is also a great supporting character in Raja, an Orangutan that Noa meets. He is a fun character for Noa to bounce off. The actors all do a phenomenal job with special praise to Kevin Durand as Proximus. The first half with the adventure between Noa and Raja is the most fun and engaging part of the film.

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Unfortunately, the second half is just not as good. Once the story has the character stuck in one location is when it starts to become kind of dull. There are many scenes where the characters are just sitting around and talking while the plot barely moves. The movie ends up feeling too long when it could easily shave off 10 minutes to improve the pacing. The music score is also very underwhelming. Michael Giacchino sadly doesn’t return to compose and is instead replaced by John Paesano. However, he didn’t do a great job as I didn’t feel like there was a memorable soundtrack that elevated any of the scenes.

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One of the strong elements of the Caesar trilogy is the strong human character to balance out with the Apes. Rise with Franco, Dawn with Jason and Gary Oldman, and War with Woody Harrelson. Kingdom has Mae played by Freya Allan but her character is just not that strong. Her story is very vague as it feels like they are leaving that for the sequel. It leads to her not being that likeable or interesting. It gets annoying in the second half when it starts to feel like she is taking the main character role away from Noa.

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Overall, Kingdom is not as good as the Caesar trilogy. However, it isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. There is a lot of charm in this movie and it is an engaging coming-of-age story. The ending is also intriguing enough that I would love to see where the sequel would take the story.

 


 

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