Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes: A Review - Middling Monkey Business

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!***

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT/SKIP IT. This flawed film is the worst of the fantastic recent reboot franchise, but it’s decent enough for Planet of the Apes fanatics despite its very pronounced flaws.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the fourth film in the Planet of the Apes franchise reboot (and the ninth in the overall franchise), hit theatres this past weekend and handily won the box office by raking in $129 million.

The film, written by Josh Friedman and directed by Wes Ball, is set many generations after the events of its tremendous predecessor, War for the Planet of the Apes, which dramatized Caesar, the patriarch of the intelligent apes, delivering the first generation of said apes to the promised land.

In Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the memory of the founding father Caesar is long forgotten by many tribes of apes living in isolated enclaves. One of these tribes is an eagle collecting group of apes, among them a young chimp named Noa (Owen Teague).

Noa accidentally stumbles upon another group of apes who not only remember the history of Caesar, but exploit it for nefarious, authoritarian means. This group, led by Proximus Caesar and his henchman gorilla Sylva, go on a rampage of conquest in order to Make Planet of the Apes Great Again….and Noa and his peaceful tribe bear the brunt of their ambition.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has Sasquatchian-sized shoes to fill considering the brilliance of its three predecessors Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and War for the Planet of the Apes, and, to be frank, it never even approaches adequately filling them. To be clear, the film isn’t bad, but it also isn’t the least bit great, and it is easily the worst of the four films in the rebooted franchise.

Planet of the Apes films, even in the original franchise of the late 1960s and early 1970s, have always been great ideas with social issues embedded deep within the sci-fi splendor.

The same is true of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, as it explores authoritarianism, exploitation, manipulation and other social issues. But just like the flawed early 1970’s sequels, Kingdom is much better as an idea than it is in execution.

The biggest issue with Kingdom is that none of its characters are even remotely compelling. The protagonist, Noa (Owen Teague), is no Caesar. He’s a rather dull and disinteresting chimp surrounded by equally dull chimps, like his friends Soona and Anaya. It also doesn’t help that it’s very difficult to tell the chimps apart as they – excuse my chimp racism – all look alike.

The uniformity of Noa’s tribe is further hampered by the flatness of each character. None stand out and none are fully fleshed out. As a result, none of their relationships are developed to the point where they’d be meaningful, never mind captivating.

The humans don’t fare any better. Nova (Freya Allen) is a mysterious human woman who isn’t that mysterious nor interesting. We never truly understand where she comes from or what motivates her. Trevathan (William H. Macy), is a human who works with apes and his story might’ve been pretty interesting but we never get to see it so we’ll never know.

Besides the lackluster characters, the film also suffers due to a lack of narrative clarity and visual crispness. Both of these shortcomings fall in the lap of director Wes Ball. Ball’s previous films include the Maze Runner trilogy, which isn’t exactly the pinnacle of cinematic experience. Watching Ball’s Planet of the Apes movie only increases Matt Reeves standing, as he directed the stellar Dawn and War films and has now graduated to the Batman franchise.

Kingdom’s plot jumps around from a coming-of-age story to a road picture to a fight-the-power narrative, but by trying to be all of these things it ends up being none of them.

Yes, Kingdom does nicely pay homage to the original 1968 film, particularly in one section with its distinct visual style and signature music, and it also gives adequate depth to the franchise’s mythology and archetypes, like having Noa (the biblical Noah – get it?) survive a flood of monkey shit both figuratively and sort of literally. But the movie never grabs you by the throat and makes you pay attention. It never makes you care much about the characters you’re supposed to care about, and never hate the characters you’re supposed to hate.

The best character in the entire film is without question Raka (Peter Macon), a monastic Orangutan who is keeping the gospel of Caesar and his sacred sayings alive, even if it is just to himself. But even Raka is not as good as say Maurice, the stunning orangutan from the previous trilogy.

That said, Raka has far too little screen time, and would be very well served with a Disney + mini-series (as would the entirety of the Orangutan class in the Planet of the Apes universe – give us a Dr. Zaius series!!), which I would voraciously watch. But instead, he’s given short shrift and the film suffers because of it.

The same is true of Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), the villainous chimp leader of a powerful group of apes, and his number one general Sylva (Eka Darville), a rough and tumble lowland gorilla.

The origin story of Proximus and Sylva too would make an interesting mini-series or feature film, no doubt more compelling than the rather tepid adventures of Noa, the good-hearted country ape forced to face the big, bad world. But instead Proximus and Sylva are rather thin characters despite there being a lot of meat left on those bones.

As far as the visuals of the film go, cinematographer Gyula Pados never paints with much flair, unlike his predecessors in the reboot trilogy. The film looks fine, but in comparison to the luscious visual feast of War for the Planet of the Apes for instance, Kingdom falls flat. The same is true of the action sequences, as the fight scenes, most notably the climactic battle, are dramatically underwhelming and poorly designed.

In addition, the CGI, for some reason, looks a little bit off compared to the previous films, or maybe it was just the lack of unique and compelling characters that made the visuals seem less than. For example, there is no character in this entire film that looks as good as say Koba or Maurice from the three previous films.

Another issue is the acting. Despite it being motion-capture acting, it is still acting, and the cast of the previous three films, most notably Andy Serkis as Caesar and Toby Kebbell as Koba, showed audiences the brilliance possible while acting through technology. Nothing in this film even comes close the stellar work of the cast in the previous films.

For example, Kevin Durand gives a rather trite and predictable performance as the villain Proximus. His bluster and big voice are routine for any first-time actor trying to play the heavy.

Owen Teague as Noa never lives up to the work Serkis did as Caesar, which to be fair, is an impossible task as Andy Serkis is the Marlon Brando of motion-capture acting….but still, the drop-off is notable and uncomfortable.

Now, with all of that bitching and moaning aside…I still have to admit that I liked Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes mostly because the original Planet of the Apes movies were my favorite film franchise of all-time and the reboot trilogy has only made the franchise in total even greater as they were sensational. Kingdom definitely has massive flaws – as explained above, but on the bright side, unlike Tim Burton’s shitty 2001 Apes movie, this is a real film and is passable entertainment. While not great, it is not an embarrassment to the franchise or the rich mythology of the franchise.

If, like me, you love the Planet of the Apes in general, you’ll like this movie well enough. It isn’t anywhere near as good as the previous three films, but it isn’t catastrophically bad either. But the bottom line is…Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a professionally made movie about talking monkeys plotting against and beating the hell out of each other…what’s not to like?

That said, one can only hope that the next Planet of the Apes film is a step up from Kingdom, or at least a step in the right direction, and this extraordinarily long-running, high-quality, fascinating franchise finds better footing moving forward.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 61: The Batman

On this special episode of everybody’s favorite cinema podcast, Barry and I don our bat capes and cowls and do battle over all things Batman, first and foremost Matt Reeves' new movie The Batman. We have a heated debate about the new Bat-film and rank our all-time top Batmans, Batman villains and Batman movies, with some shocking results.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 61: The Batman

Thanks for listening!

©2022

The Only Thing Dumber Than the #HandsOffAnastasia Twitter Furor is the Dreadful Movie That Sparked It

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 28 seconds

Some Russians have taken offense at Anastasia Romanov’s cartoonish depiction in a low-budget movie released earlier this year. They shouldn’t waste their energy on a criminally stupid piece of film making.

In case you haven’t heard, #HandsOffAnastasia is the outrage du jour on Twitter. If you were unaware of this controversy, I deeply envy you. Here is a quick breakdown of how #HandsOffAnastasia came to be. 

In Spring of this year a terrible movie titled Anastasia: Once Upon a Time came and went and no one cared because it was laughably low budget and hysterically awful. The film is a live action kids movie that tells a fantastical tale of Anastasia Romanov time traveling, with the help of a wizardly Rasputin, from Russia in 1918 to Madison, Wisconsin in 1988 in order to evade Vladimir Lenin and Yara the Enchantress’s malevolent grip. To give you an indication of the caliber of movie that Anastasia: Once Upon a Time is, here are some highlights…Rasputin has a break dance battle at a mall, plays video games and models in a fashion show, there are some absurdly random musical numbers, and a Filipino comedian plays Lenin.

I am no expert on Russian history, but I am pretty sure the film is not entirely historically accurate. And this is where the outrage comes in…apparently some Russians are up in arms that “Hollywood” would denigrate Russian history and besmirch a Sainted Russian figure like Anastasia Romanov, who was brutally murdered by Bolsheviks at age 17 with the rest of her family, by comically re-imagining her tragic tale…thus #HandsOffAnastasia was born.

More kindling on the #HandsOffAnastasia fire is a clip from the film circulating online that shows Anastasia eating spaghetti with her hands, thus implying she, and all Russians, are uncivilized barbarians.

Sadly for me, this whole #HandsOffAnastasia situation forced me to watch this stupid movie. My assessment is this…how do you say “much ado about nothing” in Russian?

First things first…Anastasia: Once Upon a Time is obscenely amateurish and ridiculously imbecilic…but it doesn’t make Anastasia out to be some Neanderthal anti-princess. The spaghetti eating scene isn’t mean spirited or even “anti-Russian”, it is just unconscionably lazy movie making.

The other thing, and this is the most important point, is that this film is so inconsequential as to be absurd. Why anyone, anywhere would care what it says or does is beyond me.

This is not some “Hollywood”, big budget operation backed by the marketing muscle of Disney. The movie was produced by Congolomerate Media and distributed by Freestyle Digital Media…not exactly Hollywood heavyweights…in fact they don’t even qualify as flyweights…or Hollywood, which is why no one has ever heard of this film until this silly controversy.

The budget for the film is bare bones, and it shows in the locations, cheap special effects and shabby costumes. Whatever money they did have seems to have been almost entirely spent acquiring the rights to the Cindi Lauper song “Time After Time”, which it uses liberally (without Lauper’s pricey vocals) throughout the film for no discernible reason.

If I could point to one remarkable thing about Anastasia: Once Upon a Time it would be that it boasts the largest collection of the worst Russian accents ever captured on film at one time. The biggest star in the movie is Brandon Routh who plays Tsar Nicholas II. Once upon a time Routh played Superman on the big screen, and in Anastasia he reveals his kryptonite is twofold…acting and a Russian accent.

The film is produced by Armando Gutierrez, who also did no one a favor by casting himself in the critical role of Rasputin. The film would have been better served casting an inanimate carbon rod in the role instead of Gutierrez.

On the bright side, there is exactly one good performance in the film, and that comes from the talented Amiah Miller, a young actress who played Nova in War for the Planet of the Apes.

Besides that the only interesting thing about this movie is that on its IMDB page it actually lists Anastasia Romanoff as one of the screenwriters. That is an intriguing marketing ploy but simply cannot be true because if the real Anastasia ever had to watch this dreadful movie she would run into the basement and shoot herself just to end the misery and embarrassment. I am sure that last joke offended some people…but here is the thing, if you have the time and energy to get upset about that lame joke or about this nonsensically preposterous movie, then you really need to get a life.

This isn’t to say that Hollywood, like the rest of America, isn’t Russophobic. It certainly is. It isn’t to say that Americans aren’t historically illiterate about Russia and ignorant about Russians. They certainly are. It is to say that this third rate clownshow of a movie is so laughably trivial that it should never ever generate any emotion, be it positive or negative, from anyone, anywhere.

#HandsOffAnastasia is, like so much of Twitter culture, a function of people with too much time on their hands searching high and low, far and wide for something, anything about which to be offended.

In conclusion, the hypersensitive Russian woke folk of #HandsOffAnastasia desperately need to keep their hands off Twitter and go out and re-connect with their heritage by doing truly Russian things…like competing in a break dancing battles at the mall, or modeling in impromptu fashion shows, or eating spaghetti with their hands.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020