Rupert Wyatt’s 2011 installment to the five decade old franchise based on books, films, TV series and comics since the 1960’s – captured the audience once again with the prequel “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” The narrative, which is powerful and hasn’t changed over the years, is of a common man, made complex, and contains strong emotions without being cheesy.
The simian character in the film, who is portrayed by Andy Serkis via unprecedented performance capture technology, is Caesar, and he has carried that narrative over the two sequels both impeccably executed by Matt Reeves in 2014 “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” and in 2017 “War for the Planet of the Apes.” In the first movie, raised by James Franco, he rapidly grew to defy the egotistic classist humans as the trilogy progressed and took on the responsibility of being a leader to a symptomatic evolution of primates. He, like the Apes, who got mentally enhanced by a virus, took his stand against humanity who lost intelligence, language and almost their entire race.
Generally, the trilogy became probably the most outstanding franchise of this century which stands confidently against the large and overly stressed mega universes and at some point makes us recall what we should expect from costly empire building Hollywood: fun entertainment that is relevant in a way that can change the outlook of regular mainstream viewers. The new film posters, Wes Ball’s remarkable ‘The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’, strongly features this new legacy and walks proudly in the shadow of it, holding solidarity.
Like Ball’s earlier films, it is Tennant’s strong conviction that these principles are not reserved for humankind only: not in his spectacular fictional story and not in the real world, which is taught by the laws and ethics of the animal kingdom. Together with his screenwriter Josh Freeman (one of the authors of the beautiful film ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ whose influence you will see many times depicted both visually and thematically herein), Ball argues that the film is just as exciting as it is action packed, visually articulate, and thoughtfully laid out in its storyline. In ‘Kingdom,’ there isn’t a single wasted whole idea and not a single scene which appears to be appended to the action graph without an adequate reward that enriches and completes the plot. In reality, here is a movie rather, a series of movies that has clearly intelligent writers and directors who attempt to have a coherent story rather than producers and executives who want to have a mass appeal.
Kingdom takes place many generations after the ‘War’ era, during and after the time of Caesar. Eagle Clan young chimpanzees Noa (Owen Teague), Anaya (Travis Jeffery), and Soon (Lydia Peckham) all performed through motion capture during the beginning of the film, Noa is climbing to great heights with the other young chimps in his clan in order to search for an eagle egg so he can’ bond with the eagle like the older members of his clan. Throughout the timeline of the events depicted, this golden eagle holds significance and is revered. After a series of thrilling and audacious activities that nearly take his life, the adventurer Noa manages to snag an egg out of a nest.
N3: The universal egg collector provokes Gaitan. Though a cloaked figure that Noa’s friend has spayed on for most of the movie, appearing as Freya Allan furrowing Mae ends up breaking the egg during a scuffle, Noa then has to go searching for a new egg which makes his otherwise quite habitat center stage for the evil masked apes led by Proximus Caesar. Working with these words to build an entire army that steers with ideals about “the great Simians says that Apes far are strong” and pushes for the end goal to be the control of mysterious human technology which was inherited centuries prior, Proximus razed Noah’s village, murdered Noah’s father and pursued Mae kryptonite all the while.
Amid all those nail biting cat and mouse sequences, the cinematography done by Gyulai Pads is overwhelming and thrillingly crafted, where large scale action comes out to be tense and is more rationally put together than what we are used to these days.
This scenic exchange is followed by young Noa coming across a melancholic orangutan and hearing about the original Caesar, a robust, ethical and kind leader. The young chimp and Mae are later taken as prisoners together with Noa’s previously mentioned pals who are enslaved by the Eagle Clan and are within the grasp of Proximus. The audience also meets William H. Macy’s character, Treva than, an educated and strong human read Vonnegut and helps Proximus learn everything he needs about human beings, who is in the vicinity of a man made disaster area next to a dead end. T. Dorrance’s production design truly shines in these scenes as the level of detail over the ape settlement, which could have been from “Water world” doesn’t seem out of place as when we eventually enter the vault, maybe, rather conveniently.
In a beautiful third act, where the “Kingdom” strides in with beautiful visuals we’ve seen in “The Way of Water,” the film also plants the ideas of more chapters to come further reinforcing the question of whether some forms of inter species peace can be achieved. But perhaps even more importantly, the anti gun and anti violence stance taken by “Kingdom” portrays the worries and the tragedies of the modern world in a well anchored manner within its plot. Are there moments which require us to abandon peace? (There is particularly one unforgettably violent scene with Mae that poses this question which a less benign film would be too chicken to raise.) Are we failing to learn the essential lessons of our history, if we are learning any at all? Why can’t everyone get along is confounding to say the very least?
As “Kingdom” makes it very apparent, it does not hold the solutions. But of course you can bet your bottom dollar this Hollywood franchise which strangely focuses quite a bit on cinema won’t stop searching until we get a reasonable answer.
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