#kingdom of the planet of the apes review

[amesmonde]

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) Review

300 years after the reign of Caesar, Noa, a young chimpanzee, embarks on a journey alongside Mae, a human woman, to find his kidnapped clan.Directed by Wes Ball, Kingdom of the Apes is a visually stunning addition to the Planet of the Apes franchise, though it falls short of reaching the heights of its some of its predecessors including the original.Accompanied by John Paesano’s score the film’s…

[agentnico]

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) review

Apes without Caesar are not strong!

Plot: Many years after the reign of Caesar, a young ape goes on a journey that will lead him to question everything he's been taught about the past and make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.

The Planet of the Apes reboot trilogy is genuinely a solid collection of well made films. Rise, Dawn and War of the Planet of the Apes are a perfect example of how tell an enticing science fiction story, with truly incredible life-like visuals and really thought provoking. And of course Andy Serkis’ lead mo-cap performance of the ape Caesar is truly phenomenal and his messiah-reflective character arc is really investing to behold. Mind you these films put Matt Reeves and Michael Giacchino on the map - one a successful director and another an accomplished film composer. That being said, War for the Planet of the Apes felt like a proper finale to the Caesar story, and though it did leave room for possible continuation, I felt satisfied with the way it ended. But naturally these films are money-makers so it was only a matter of time before the Hollywood sequel machine did its thing and another movie came to me. Enter Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

Brought to us by Wes Ball, who’s most known for directing those Maze Runner films, arguably the last of the 2010’s YA movie trend. And like the Maze Runner movies are fine. They were okay for what they were but nothing special, and nothing that gave indication that Wes Ball was gonna be the next big thing. And with Kingdom, though there are some wonderful shifts and the apes design by Weta once again is a stand-out, this movie’s look didn’t impress me as much as the previous films. Again, solid visuals, but not groundbreaking. With the Andy Serkis apes movies, every new entry of that trilogy felt like a step-up visually from the previous, with War honestly looking scarily realistic, making me wonder if Serkis simply underwent heavy surgery to make himself look like an ape. You know, similar to that young Frenchman on Instagram who went viral for undergoing extreme body modification procedures to make himself look like an alien. Honestly, I’m not even kidding, this guy exists - look it up! Regardless, in Kingdom we don’t see that visual progression. Again it looks good, but it didn’t flabbergast me in its realism.

Biggest issue though is the script. The first half of this movie truly was boring! The pacing was off, and aside from the main new hero ape all the characters weren’t at all that interesting and there’s no one I cared about. As for the story itself, it feels like a lesser retread of the same ideas and themes of the previous trilogy. There's nothing really new here. You've already seen a better version of this movie before. The second half does ramp it up a little and there’s a little more energy and a sense of direction, but again it feels like walking on familiar territory. The main antagonist could have been really cool, played by the way by that buff Elon Musk lookalike who was in Abigail earlier this year. The idea of a cult-like warlord obsessed with human history, there's so much they could have done with that idea. But he simply doesn't have enough scenes to really make him anything more than Koba Part II. And Koba had better motivations and more complexity.

Oh, and the music score is pretty generic and forgettable. Really disappointing, because I loved the music from the other movies. Caesar's theme is so good. Nothing here comes close. I’m not going to lie Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes does not inspire confidence in these movies continuing without Caesar’s presence. I mean his shadow is all over this movie, but it only makes you miss the times he was there. This isn’t necessarily a bad movie, it’s just a massive downgrade from what this franchise used to achieve. Oh, and by the way the deus ex machina eagles from Lord of the Rings have come over to the apes to save the day this time, and look I’m the last person to bash on Lord of the Rings, but those eagles just swooping in to save the characters whenever Tolkien got stuck out of ideas was the one ultimate convenient get-out-of-jail-free card and it’s not something I wished for other franchises to copy. So shame on you Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, shame on you!

Overall score: 4/10

[spryfilm]

Movie review: “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” (2024)

[movieanimex]

Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes (2024) Full Review Checkout On MovieAnimeX:-

[xplore-the-unknwn]

HEAR ME OUT-

vid by @thatfilmguy5 on tiktok

Their scenes together have this likable tension. Every time Im like WHAT IS HAPPENING AND WHY DO I LOVE IT. There was this super intense scene in a field where Mae called for him and Noa came to her aid like a knight on a horse literally. It got me like- Oh… I want to see where this is going. 😳😳🙈

Their dynamic also complements each other that its cute! How they’re parallels but similar in what they’re fighting for. Both opening each other’s eyes to different worlds. HOW COULD I NOT WANT their relationship to develop in future sequels (even if they’re not endgame the TENSION IS THERE)

and their chemistry-

Its chef’s kiss. Its the Highlight of this film. When you watch it you’ll know. Their chemistry makes the characters sooo rootable and makes you more curious that you want to see how their dynamic flourishes whether as enemies or as besties- which is good and healthy for the franchise!!

Idk how they did it but the writers and Wes Ball knew what they were doing pining us with this tension. GENIUS.

[rickchung]

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (dir. Wes Ball).

[It] builds some great simian action with shades of historical religious wars and seeds the cyclical nature of humanity through its fleshed-out ape characters. However, once it firmly establishes an interesting direction, things veer into more conventional blockbuster fare while abandoning some of the compelling character motivations it so deliberately set up. It also sorely misses the heart Andy Serkis' expert digital performance brought the the cinematic table.

[wa1kerbait4592]

planet of the apes 🦧

dude… i have now seen the new kingdom of the planet of the apes in cinema twice and the first time around i wasn’t all that impressed and i left the theatre kinda disappointed but the second time around i left a little more impressed and a little less disappointed.

the movie was still weak compared to the first three films, (the rise, dawn and war) but im glad it was made.

as a whole i believe this franchise is criminally underrated on multiple different levels. The poetic nature of the films is something i don’t think i would ever articulate or write on paper to perfectly capture how beautifully made these films are, they are just chefs kiss

proximus caesar was a funny villain that i think deserved more screen time and back story, it makes me kinda sad to think that we wont really see his character again.

the symbolism that links all four films together is incredibly well done and throughout the entire series there are crumbs of the films that came before them, which is a part of the reason why i love these films so much. i like how they made noa so similar to caesar, not only in his appearance but in his characteristics. i like to believe it was intentional that noa and caesar (particularly in dawn of the planet of the apes with malcolm) cautiously but willingly trusted a human. noa is so incredibly similar to caesar it would be criminal to suggest otherwise.

dude these films are so visually well done you almost forget you are watching cgi. the visual effects alone blow my mind but the accuracy and attention to detail when it comes to the mannerisms of the apes is out of this world and deserves more recognition. in terms of cinematography planet of the apes have always been amazing at beautifully capturing emotions from all the apes and even better at showing the wonders of a post-human run world. the forests and surroundings that the apes find themselves in continue to amaze me, especially in this newest film were we see a variety of different landscapes.

as much as i am growing to love kingdom of the planet of the apes, i feel as though we could have waited for noa and his story. i think cornelius and the others that were left behind after caesars death deserved a closing chapter. i would have loved to know how the community handled the loss of their leader and saviour and how they all moved on. also i feel as though we needed back story on how the apes separated and became different clans spread all across the continent. as an example i would have also loved to see how the misinterpretation of caesar and what he stood for became so strong and wide spread, as well as why noas clan and their elders knew nothing of caesar or chose to leave him out of their history. there were a lot of open ends and unfinished stories that deserved more screen time, but in saying that, that could mean an eternity of story telling that everyone may not want to see.

at the end of kingdom of the planet of the apes they left it open for another film which i am looking forward to seeing where they take story line. are they going to fully circle around to the original films were they capture more humans and start to use them as slaves or will the story begin to get repetitive? i hope repetition won’t sneak its way into these films like is has with so many other franchises, but we can only hope right?

anyways-

long live monkeys… i love monkeys and we need more monkey movies

also- i know i don’t really do this sort of this thing on this account but i was beginning to genuinely tweak if i didn’t word vomit my thoughts on these movies <3

[ehart2003]

Review Of 'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes'

After seven years, we finally have another Planet of the apes Film Just released into the cinemas. It is set roughly three hundred years after the last movie, humans IQ have descended thanks to the virus that increased the intelligence of the apes. We see a Clan called the Eagle Clan and follow a young ape named Noa, this young ape is the son of the Leader and ends up tied up between a human sighting and an attack by a group of apes under the control of a leader named 'Proximus Caesar'.

After the Destruction of his village, Noa must discover that the world is not how he thought it was and is rather way more cruel and complicated. In this film we meet a Orangutan called Raka who is a glimmering light in this film after a lot of traumatic moments from the start of the movie. He teaches Raka about the old world and how humans used to be as well as the mythology of Caesar (a different Caesar to Proximus, I know very confusing) from the previous three films.

Despite being the forth film in the reboot of this franchise it holds its own compared to the previous films while also setting a stage for future films. The Cinematography is beautiful, showing how the world has changed without the influence of humans and helping to show off the advancement in CGI technology for the apes, which show the emotional variety that are created by the talented cast of actors that made this film possible.

Final Rating:

3.8/5 Stars

[mylifeincinema]

My Week(s) in Reviews: June 9, 2024

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller, 2024)

Disappointing. It's impossible to not compare this movie to Fury Road. The sad thing is, when you do compare this to Fury Road, every single aspect of it pales in comparison. Anya is really good, here, but just never feels like Furiosa. And Chris Hemsworth is a blast, but he goes full-ham in the most distracting way imaginable. Then there's Miller's direction, which is tedious compared to his work on Fury Road. The structure of the film is awkward, and the pacing is damn-near unbearable, draining the action set-pieces of almost all of the balls-to-the-wall adrenaline in which every single moment of Fury Road was drowning. And the cinematography is a complete bore compared to the eye-melting shots by which Fury Road was almost exclusively composed. All that being said, on its own, Furiosa is not a bad movie. Unfortunately, however, it's impossible to experience it on its own in a world where the infinitely superior Fury Road exists. - 6/10

In the Land of Saints and Sinners (Robert Lorenz, 2024)

I really like this brand of slow-burn, quietly human, small-town action-thrillers. Add in this stellar cast and that pitch-perfect climax, and this is the best of its kind I've come across in at least the past few years. - 9/10

The Beekeeper (David Ayer, 2024)

Far from good, but just action-packed enough to keep it from being a complete waste of time. - 4.5/10

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Wes Ball, 2024)

The absence of Andy Serkis felt significant. But other than that, this wasn't bad. Overlong? Definitely. But far from bad. I don't have much to say, really. The mo-cap work was fantastic, and there were some really interesting/exciting set-pieces. The cast were pretty solid straight through, with the highlights definitely being Freya Allan and Kevin Durand, who steals every second of screen-time he has. - 8/10 For Reference... My Updated Scores for the New Planet of the Apes Films: Rise: 7.5/10 Dawn: 9/10 War: 9.5/10 Kingdom: 8/10

I also revisited Peter Jackson's The Frighteners and Christopher Landon's Happy Death Day & Happy Death Day 2U. The Frighteners is every bit as amazing as it was the last time I watched it, except for how poorly the effects have aged. And the Happy Death Day movies were just as fun as they were in cinemas. I really wish we'd get more of that concept and delivery, and more of Jessica Rothe as a scream queen.

Enjoy!

-Timothy Patrick Boyer.

[creativedifferencespodcast]

“A coming of age story…but apes.” Have y’all seen Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes? Are you surprised by how good this series of movies about apes turned out to be? Did the bad guy remind you of Elon Musk? Check out episode 281 to hear Demi’s thoughts on the movie and all these pressing questions!

[mortalbumblebeecat]

Just watched “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” and it is a great continuation of the franchise. The effects look great, the story is amazing, and the performance is wonderful.

[whokilledray777]

I JUST FINISHED WATCHING KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES IN THE THEATRE !!!!! SCREAMING !!!!!!!!

I loved loved LOVED the first three movies ever since I was young !! But unfortunately I was always too young to go to the movie theatre (first time was in 2019 for dumbo live action) so watching KOTPOTA on the big screen WAS AMAZING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[vaultsy]

some of my favorite Letterboxd reviews for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

[rye-views]

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) dir. Wes Ball. 7.8/10

I would recommend this movie to my friends. I would rewatch this movie.

Soona is a lovely name. Wow the name Anaya like the vine. Apes training birds are so cool. I'm glad dad got a proper burial. Damn at Caesar's impact. Raka is lovely, offering to teach and down to travel. Tell me his past. The hello echo from Anaya was cute. I care about mother, take care of mother.

lol at our gasp when Mae spoke a sentence for the first time. My gasp at seeing the apes under the bridge. Lol Hwasa pls.

Raka nooo. I'm horrified every time a bonobo pounds a chimpanzee.

I wonder if Noa is related to Caesar. This movie really exudes Kevin's quote, "Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick." After all these generations with current humans, I wonder how much the ocean has changed. Is it better in there?

[artist-issues]

Would love to know your thoughts on the Planet of the Apes series, or at least the newest movie!

This is so kind of you, to ask!

I started watching those movies before my formal education. And they're in that teeny little corner of my brain where I just like things, without having examined why I like them. In that teeny little corner, I have my critical thinking and movie analyzation turned off, and I just enjoy things like singing animals even if the movie is objectively bad (I'm looking at you Alpha & Omega 🫠) or Transformers. So yeah, Planet of the Apes falls in there.

I know. I just made a post about how important it is to train your tastes for good stories, and accept no junk food...and then the very next post was like "the future is meaningless but the monkey movie is now" ^^" Look there's a time and place for examining why you like things and I'm just saying I haven't gotten down the list to why I like the monkey movies yet!

Until now! Partly because you're asking, partly because watching the new one made me start to think about what I liked about the first three...because the new one hit me differently. So what I'm getting at is, I'll answer you, but I'm going to be "thinking out loud" and we'll find out what I think of those movies as I type, and it's going to be rambly. Sorry! (Skip to the bottom to read about the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.)

I Miss Caesar

My favorite character in these movies is actually Koba, but Caesar is the heart and soul of them.

There's nothing particularly unique about Caesar as a main character—he's a coming-of-age, great-leader-from-nothing Savior-type character. He doesn’t have many character flaws, he’s the idealist, etc.

But what makes you, the audience, love Caesar so much is that you get to see his story, and the whole driving hook of the movies—“apes with human intelligence”—embodied in him, from the very beginning.

Caesar has two really awesome things going for him. The first is that he is an ape, and you get to see his intelligence and his empathetic, human nature, grow in real-time. The audience is excited to see how he’ll respond to the simplest thing because he’s so believably a super-intelligent ape. You’re like, “ooo, he just noticed that he’s wearing a leash, and the dog is wearing a leash, so how will he respond to that comparison? Ooo, now he’s meeting other apes, is he going to notice that they aren’t as smart as him? Ooo, he just attacked a neighbor, but he’s smarter than the average animal on a rampage, so how will he feel about the moral repercussions of violence?” We want to watch an animal that’s becoming self-aware; it almost doesn’t matter what he’s doing, we’ll watch it, because that’s fascinating. That’s the first thing he has going for him.

But then the second thing he has going for him is that, even if he were human, he’s just a really inspiring, likeable character. If you rewrite Caesar as a human (but somehow keep the equivalent of “gradually becoming self-aware of his uniqueness as a creature” plot point) his story is still really compelling. Think about that scene where he learns what he is, for the first time, point-blank.

Once he learns who he is and what he is, he does not immediately turn bitter, or resent his adoptive father, or even try to change the status quo of his own life. He looks sad, and very contemplative about it, but when he loses his temper and gets taken to the ape sanctuary, he still wants to go back home. He wants to go back to living in an attic, with brief excursions to the woods on a leash. At that point he already knows, on some level, that he’s a super-intelligent freak of nature and could resent Will for making him that way or keeping him a secret. But he doesn’t.

He also shows mercy to Rocket, the bully ape, and makes him super-intelligent.

He also shows signs of being interested in Cornelia, his eventual wife—before she turns super-intelligent. While she’s still significantly stupider, on a whole lower plane of intelligence, than him.

They give him all these little touches, like the fact that he wants to play ball with the other apes immediately when he meets them, instead of being shy, or treating their naked stupid selves like they’re beneath him. Like the fact that he asks Will’s permission before he goes climbing. Like the fact that he gives them all super-human intelligence, instead of keeping that superpower for himself and leveraging it to his own advantage, or gatekeeping it for only the apes who are nice to him.

He’s awesome because he’s got all the protective, trusting, loving, humility of our favorite pets. But then he takes all those pure qualities and combines them with supernatural intelligence, and “noble leader of the pack” traits. So he feels like a wise king, even in the second movie, when, from our perspective, he should just be…a naked ape who talks in broken English and lives in a tree fort.

Probably the best character trait of Caesar’s is that he inherits this “family” mentality from his adoptive father, Will. He thinks that the difference between apes and humans is that apes are loyal and love one another, specifically “like a family.”

And what that means to Caesar is that you would do anything to keep your family safe. Because that’s what Will did. Will only made the serum that started this whole franchise because he was trying to cure his father of Alzheimer’s. Will was always willing to break rules and cheat the system and change the world if it meant he could keep his family safe, and that included Caesar, who was not his blood relation.

So to Caesar, being a family means you would never hurt the people in your family; you can’t hurt them yourself, and you can’t let anyone else hurt them—and you can’t do things that would lead to them getting hurt, like starting a war.

And that’s just really appealing. A noble leader whose whole heart is “family,” but also, he’s this really interesting animal-that-learns-human-empathy.

I was going to talk about Koba, but this is too long, so maybe in another post. Suffice to say, I think the first two movies do a really good job of pacing everything, so that you have plenty of time to fall in love with Caesar, feel like you’ve watched him discover who he is and decide what to do with that in real-time, and then feel fully invested in the world he’s trying to build.

Basically what I’m saying is, I think I just really love Caesar, and so does everyone else who watches him, because he’s really well-done. And Andy Serkis smashes this role out of the park. It’s like my favorite thing he’s ever done. He does it perfectly. And in the fourth movie, I just go into it…already missing Caesar.

War For the Planet of the Apes

I didn’t like this movie as much as the first two. The first two I’ve seen over and over again. But the third one is not as enjoyable.

I think I don’t enjoy it because a lot of it feels like gratuitous misery. I mean, I understand—traditionally, in an epic-scale trilogy, you develop your main characters over the course of the first two movies. They learn who they are, they commit to a mission statement born out of the lessons they’ve learned, and then, in the third movie, that lesson learned gets tested with the “ultimate challenge.”

Well, so, Caesar learned he was the leader of basically a naive species and the founder of a new world—and the lesson he took from that was, “to keep my family safe, I must protect them from hate.” (I know that’s broad, but what I mean by that is, Caesar initially took the apes to the woods when they were “reborn” as their own species to hide them from humans, who would fear and hate what they couldn’t understand. But then he had to protect them from a new form of hatred; the hatred of Koba, and other apes like him, who hated humans so much and hated anyone else being in power so much that he was willing to hurt “family” to satisfy that hatred.

So what’s the ultimate test of “to keep my family safe, I must protect them from hate?” Giving Caesar hate. Caesar is not a hateful character. He’s like the total opposite of that—that’s why he can single-handedly defend the ape species from Hate in general.

But you murder his wife and child in the first part of the movie?

That’ll do it!

Plus, it’s been a long, hard fight and nothing he has done since the “war” against “hate” started seems to be working, so he’s understandably tired even before Blue Eyes and Cornelia die. Then they die. And then the rest of the tribe gets nabbed. And Caesar is ready to focus all his energy on revenge, just like Koba.

So yeah, that’s the correct “ultimate test” of everything Caesar has learned as a character, to put him through in this trilogy. But honestly, it was just too sad to enjoy watching.

And remember how I said that the two things Caesar has going for him as a character that make the movies (which are all about him) so enjoyable are:

He’s a well-written, inspiring character outside of being an ape (we just talked about that side of the 3rd movie, how it’s the conclusion to that character.)

The movies are well-paced so that you’re fascinated by watching an animal become increasingly human-like and empathetic, without losing the best parts of a noble/niave/animal nature

Well. The problem is that, because of the way these movies go, the apes have to become less animal as the story goes on. The whole point is that they’re as smart as humans now. So they’ll make human-like mistakes, and start to come to some of the same “conclusions” as “early man” did.

What I’m saying boils down to, they stop acting so much like believable apes in War for the Planet of the Apes. They talk out loud more often than they pantomime or speak through obvious body language. Heck, Caesar has full on monologues or confrontations with the human villain, the Colonel, in the third movie.

What made his interactions with humans before so appealing to watch was that he would still act like an ape. When he wants the humans to drive him to his old home, he just lays in the back of the car and grunts and taps the window when they’re getting close to make them stop, without explaining himself. Like your dog might, straining at his leash toward home when he wants to be done walking. But we, the audience, like that sort of thing because with Caesar, we know there’s human levels of understanding behind all the appealing animal actions that make us think of our pets.

It’s that sweet savage naivety. It’s that fascinating simplicity meeting human wonder. You like watching Malcolm try to explain why they need to get the generators on, while Caesar just silently looks back and forth from him to the machines, because it’s fun to try and figure out what’s going on in his head. It’s fun to watch how the animal with superhuman intelligence will communicate that he sort of understands what the stranger wants. It’s also fun to see how the new species of superhuman apes will still act like animals with each other.

The whole fact that, even though they’re just as smart and technically non-savage, mentally, as we are, but there’s still a part of the apes that will just follow Koba if he beats Caesar in a fistfight, is fascinating. The fact that Caesar is the most “evolved” of the apes, mentally and emotionally, but when Koba challenges his leadership or insults his love for his family, Caesar will just straight-up start ripping him to pieces with his fists, is fascinating. You keep watching to see what an anthropomorphized animal really looks like, because they make that part so believable.

But in War for the Planet of the Apes, the Apes don’t have that contrast as much. You’re not getting to see civilized, fully-realized human characters share you, the audience’s, fascination with apes who are still figuring out what it means to be empathetic. You’re not watching anthropomorphized animals anymore as much as you’re watching…hairy, superstrong humans. Which brings us toooo…

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Sorry it took so long to get to the part you asked me about 😅

They’re just hairy, superstrong humans in this movie. That’s all. They’re very clearly super-humanly intelligent, they walk less like apes and swing through trees almost not-at-all after the first climbing part of the movie. They talk out loud (even though sign language wasn’t completely abandoned, which I appreciated) even when they’re just talking to themselves. They look more human, in the face. It’s just a joy to watch Koba, and in this movie, Proximus, even though they’re bad guys, because those two characters have the most animal-like faces. So you love to watch their snarly, long snouts and teeth speak human words, in ape-tones.

But the main ape characters all have human-like faces. Too human-like. They look uncanny-valley-y in some shots. (Except Anaya, who I liked best out of the new main three apes.)

And like I said, they have these more-advanced cultures, which just makes them feel more human. It felt like I was watching a movie about, like, a tribe of post-apocalyptic humans meeting the leftovers of civilized humanity. Not anthropomorphized animals meeting the leftovers of civilized humanity.

I kept waiting for the apes to have those fascinating interactions with the human characters. I kept waiting for May to teach something to Noa and the other apes, and for them to get all fascinated and have like, an animal reaction. That never really happened. The closest moment to that was when she switches on the lights in the bunker and the apes whoop and stumble around confusedly. Or when Noa learns to curse. 🫠 Also, the apes don’t have any kind of interesting reaction when May murders the other human of her own kind. They just stand there, looking sort of surprised, while dramatic music plays and May looks stressed. It felt like that should’ve been a moment where the apes realize something profound or scary about humanity (that she’d turn on her own so quickly,) or respond to her like they might an alpha-animal who just killed a challenger, or something like that. But that doesn’t really happen.

The movie was kind of full of moments like that, where it felt like they were building toward something profound…and then concluded on a vague or undecided note. Can humans and apes live side by side? …We don’t know. Was Caesar using apes for his own gain, or was he a noble elder? We don’t know. (Well, we do, but the main characters don’t.) Was May just trying to re-establish a communicating human community, or are she and the other humans out to retake the apes’ world? We don’t know.

Other random notes:

The cinematography was really good. There were moments where I felt like I was standing in the scene, or like I was on a ride at Disney World that believably sprays you in the face with water even though it’s a virtual environment, or pumps the smell of trees into the room to make you feel like you’re there. I don’t know what it was about the way this was shot, but I felt like I could feel the sun, and the wind, and smell the rain, etc. I actually can’t remember the last time a movie made me feel that way, so the cinematography was great. The animation is good, too, despite the uncanny valley ape faces.

I can’t decide if I like Noa. I could tell they were being very protective of the value of slow pacing, and maybe that “feel-like-you’re-inside-the-screen” cinematography was meant to help with this, but I also felt like they were trying to make us feel like we were vicariously on Noa’s long, scary, melancholy adventure with him. It was definitely supposed to be an epic-scale coming-of-age for that ape character.

But I was a little bored. I didn’t need to see him walk from one end of a field of vision to the other every single time he entered a new area. (Especially not when he’s just walking, or worse, sitting on a horse who’s just walking. When he’s an ape. And all you want to do is see him climb and swing and flip.) I also thought the actor did a really good job of emoting, but there were so many scenes of him choking on blood after a hard fall or a fight, or crying, or gazing sadly into the middle distance for a long time. It was like, “I get it. I don’t need so much of this.”

Also, there were things I didn’t care about emotionally that I felt like I should have, in order to empathize with Noa. First off, his father and his father’s death. Noa made lots of anxious expressions and clearly wanted to please his father, I guess…but there wasn’t really an indication that his father was a tough guy to please. Or that they were super close. We didn’t get enough scenes with the father before he died to make us feel emotion that would carry us all the way through Noa’s journey, in my opinion. Even his two best friends—I felt like they were building up to some thematic thing about growing up together, doing everything together, etc. But they didn’t. That sort of went nowhere.

I also felt like the most compelling parts of the movie were when May had not yet revealed herself to be intelligent, and Noa didn’t like her…but they were slowly starting to trust and understand each other. When she stands up and calls his name, that was my favorite part of the movie. Not because it was a great callback to the impactful, iconic “The Animal Spoke” moments of Caesar. But because it was her, a dumb brute, learning to trust and rely on this alien-like creature that was so much smarter than her, and building that dynamic.

It was just that I was missing “animal interacts with human” fascination. But then it turns out they’re both human. Noa is just hairy and strong, and May is not.

Also I didn’t love the whole spin they took to communicate “nature over unnatural progress” with Proximus. I get it. The eagles are symbolic of nature and living in harmony with it. Proximus is symbolic of trying to cheat nature and jump the gun unnaturally. But I’m a Christian. I don’t find anything compelling, inherently, about the idea that it’s “nature” that causes us to “evolve” to what we’re “meant to be.” It also doesn’t even make sense within the context of these movies. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have the reason apes become super intelligent and free be a non-natural drug…and still say that the non-natural drug was a bad choice with world-ending consequences. Which is it? Try to control nature? Or don’t? Because if you don’t, the apes still get treated like dumb brutes and rounded up for experimentation. And Alzheimer’s is never cured. But if you do, yes the brutes get freedom, but all of humanity goes through a brutal virus, your father’s suffering is prolonged, and your girlfriend tells you “some things aren’t meant to be tampered with.”

So like, which is it? Should the vault be opened and shared with the apes? Or should the eagles knock the mean unnatural King Ape off the cliff? I don’t know.

I don’t love that the movie ends with so much of that. But I guess it had to. Thats the logical next step of a series that is about a new species continually growing to be more human, and it’s the next step for setting up the next phase.

So that’s how I felt about all of that! Thanks for asking. Maybe I will talk about Koba someday.