Previously on Planet of the Apes: apes rule Earth now! Andy Serkis’ Caesar led apes to victory but died for ape sins! Virus strike whole planet, make humanity stupider! Humanity also mute now! Lucky apes not have to hear human stupidity! Unless apes reinvent internet! Movies not say humans can’t type! Maybe ape moderators ban humans from simian media!

Everything’s coming up monkey-house as we continue with the prequel/reboot (preqboot?) series that’s been among the most consistently entertaining of its kind in this era of I.P. recycle-overdrive. (R.I.P. those once-cool X-Men preqboots whose producers turned their last two flicks into shiny dumpster clutter.) So far we’ve had nary a clunker in the new bunch, more than we can say for the original Apes pentalogy. That’s including the latest release, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which box-office pundits are dubbing a failure because its opening weekend earned “only” $58 million domestic, nearly twice as much as all other May 2024 blockbuster openings. Guess it’s hard out here for a chimp.

If you were on board for the last three rounds of alt-future monkeyshines, round four takes a logical new direction, if not necessarily a radically new one. A centuries-wide time jump picks up long after Caesar’s benevolent reign has faded into legend because apes make poor history-book publishers. No monkey king has risen to pull together a truly unified ape nation per se; instead they’ve formed scattered, ostensibly happy clans. Owen Teague (It Chapter Two, Black Mirror‘s “Arkangel”) is our new MOCAP-suited hero Noa, teenage son in a forest-dwelling family of falconers. Humans still scrounge around the periphery, grunting boogeypeople scurrying about in this new world without reality TV to make them even dumber.

Alas, Kingdom isn’t 2½ hours of pretending the planet would be better off under animal rule. Tragedy strikes when a conquering ape army storms the village and ruins everything. Underneath the layers of fiercely intimidating CGI is Kevin Durand (last seen differently flexing in Abigail) as Proximus Caesar, an ostensible descendant of the Caesar himself who resembles him in no useful ways at all. Fans fondly recall Caesar’s catchphrase, “Apes…together…strong!” which wasn’t a macho boast, but rather a rallying cry for genus-wide teamwork in the face of adversity. Due to Proximus’ lack of proper schooling and his lust for tyranny, he misquotes his alleged ancestor into perversion: “Apes…strong!” The family tree of the apes’ George Washington has genetically degraded into an extra-aggro George “The Animal” Steele.

Proximus clearly disregards another former rule: “Ape shall not harm ape.” Granted, that already happened in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, but that was more of a one-time exception, as an extremely physical extension of “Ape shall debate ape” before they all pulled together to defeat Woody Harrelson in War. Caesar and Koba were closer to philosophical equals, the Jefferson and Adams of apes, perhaps an imperfect analog given how the HBO miniseries never showed Paul Giamatti and Stephen Dillane dueling in midair like rampaging trapeze artists. But Proximus’ domain is all about ape-fight-ape as his minions enslave Noa’s friends and neighbors for a large-scale pet project. Noa recovers from being left for dead and has to road-trip after them, possibly working his way up to standing before his much taller enemy and bellowing, “LET MY PEOPLE GO!”, thus referencing the wrong Charlton Heston film.

Along the way Noa collects a few allies. An orangutan named Raka (The Orville‘s Peter Macon) offers a respite from rage and is the closest the preqboots have come to an ape sage. (Whither Dr. Zaius?) The quest gets a little more complicated when they find themselves followed by a curious human (The Witcher‘s Freya Allan) who seems a bit more astute and definitely better dressed than her tatterdemalion brethren. Our Heroes ignore her discrepancies and invite the poor, sharp stray to tag along on the long ride to ape justice. What’s the worst that could happen?

The baton has been passed from previous directors Rupert Wyatt (who’s retreated to smaller films and TV ever after) and Matt Reeves (now overseer of The Batman‘s transmedia pocket dimension) onto Wes Ball, manager of the entire Maze Runner trilogy. (I’ve not seen them; though I’d always figured they’d be available someday as a Black Friday Blu-ray 3-pack. So far, nada.) Armed with a screenplay by Josh Friedman, showrunner behind the criminally short-lived Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Ball clearly had all the resources he needed in terms of imagination and funding. The visuals are more extravagant than ever — the zillions of exquisitely rendered monkey hairs, the verdant Last of Us post-apoc panoramas on the horizon and up front, the impossibly acrobatic camera work as the cast swings and leaps and bounces from perch to vertiginous perch, through trees and abandoned skyscrapers alike.

Our Dolby Cinema screening no doubt amped the A/V components considerably, but the immersion effect was total and wowing, expertly playing up the advantages of the theatrical experience. The quiet distances between fights might feel longer than in past entries, but for fans it’s all the more opportunity to cohabit the apes’ world, feel and hear it from within. It’s a more pleasurable time dilation than if this had instead been reformatted into a much longer and duller streaming series.

Inevitably all the ape-fights lead to an explosive finale at a monolithic human edifice that’s daunting and confounding and nonfunctional, until it isn’t and the danger levels elevate alarmingly. A new environment requires some adaptation, familiar technologies glimmer in the shadows, water becomes more of a risk than a resource, some light natural selection ensues, and we learn the humans may have been conspiring to star in their own secret sci-fi movie on the side when nobody was looking. Despite some clever sleight-of-hand, the focus remains firmly on the furry — their foibles, their furies, and their fates.

As peaceable heroes forced into conflict go, Noa is no Caesar, but perhaps that’s setting the monkey bar unfairly high. Who among us can hope to compare to Serkis, really? But Teague is believable as the earnest youngster who can’t go it alone and learns to encourage the small ensemble toward saving the day. It’s worth remembering Caesar wasn’t born an action hero, either. Circumstances thrust him into the role, and his conscience dictated he roll with it. Given time, perhaps Noa (and Teague) might grow in that direction, assuming the series doesn’t take any more lengthy time-jumps and leave him behind.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes works mostly fine as a standalone story, but — as is the blockbuster style — it’s blatantly not The End, and not an extended finale that turns the trilogy into a quadrilogy. Studios gonna studio, so it ends with a promise of more Apes to come. This one adds a few new tidbits to the overall mythology (e.g., why the name “Nova” is so common) and portends the potential fun trivia that a fifth Apes preqboot could lead to this series matching the classic series in length. Dare they even contemplate keeping up the good work and go 5-for-5 on Tomatometer ratings?

Any such hope relies on the filmmakers not to get comfy, fall back on lazy habits, or disregard the lessons learned as the Planet has kept on turning. Same as with us humans: Apes forget history, Apes doomed to repeat it.

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Meanwhile in the customary MCC film breakdowns:

Hey, look, it’s that one actor!: Other apes include Eka Darville (Marvel’s Jessica Jones) as Proximus’ lead henchman; and Neil Sandilands (Netflix’s Sweet Tooth, The Flash‘s big-bad Thinker) as Noa’s dad. As a sort of bridge between trilogies, a brief prologue welcomes back Karin Konoval, survivor of the first three films, as Caesar’s old friend Maurice.

Humans who don’t dress like Quest for Fire extras include Academy Award Nominee William H. Macy (Fargo! Mystery Men! more more more!) as a spineless I.T. guy and Dichen Lachman (Dollhouse, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) as a figure of a certain station.

How about those end credits? No, there’s no scene after the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes end credits, but they do confirm Mr. Serkis, the late Caesar himself, offered his services to the newcomers as a Movement Consultant. A few minutes beyond the official cast list, ape noises are also attributed to a number of voice actors that include established pros like Dee Bradley Baker and Fred Tatasciore.

Those who stick around till the very end for the fade-to-black will hear one last orangutan holler, hinting perhaps we haven’t seen the last of old Raka…