“So, eagle, you do for apes what you did for dwarves and hobbit?”

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.

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