Rebooting A classic sci-fi movie is never a small task! It usually goes wrong in my opinion. So, when it was announced that they were rebooting the Planet of the Apes franchise after the disastrous Tim Burton remake of the brilliant 1968 Planet of the Apes movie starring Charlton Heston, I was incredibly skeptical. Like, here we go again… Hollywood is going to keep ruining a classic franchise. Boy was I wrong. These latest Planet of the Apes movies shouldn’t have been that good! But damn it if they didn’t exhilarate the franchise and give us a great origin story of Caesar. Of course, we had an origin story in the other universe of Planet of the Apes that led to his birth in Escape From the Planet of the Apes to the final film of that franchise, Battle for the Planet of the Apes. These movies are pretty good films… maybe not as good as the original 1968 Planet of the Apes movie which I consider the greatest Science Fiction allegory ever created, but the storytelling was good even if the film’s reeked of low-budget filmmaking. Now we have a fourth movie in the reboot of the Planet of the Apes franchise… Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, and again, I was skeptical that they could make a good movie after they closed out Caesar’s story in the last three how in the world could they top War for the Planet of the Apes where we get a perfect ending to Caesar’s story and the rise of Apes who will eventually be the dominant species on Earth. Well, they did! I love the last three movies. But I think in some ways, this is the best of the reboot movies.  Not only are we seeing a whole new world with apes, but we’re dealing with the ramifications of Caesar’s Legacy hundreds of years later. We’re essentially getting a whole new world which means new lore, new world-building, and new characters. It’s usually at this moment that great franchises can be ruined, but it seems like without even trying, the reboot series is reinvigorated yet again another great film in the franchise. There’s no way these movies should be this good, right?

The story of Caesar in the Planet of the Apes is great, but I feel like in a lot of ways this is a much better story because you have characters that remember his legacy and then you have characters that twist his teachings while at the same time having characters that don’t know anything about him. There’s a mystery to the lore. That is clearly seen in the main character of Noah played by Owen Teague. It’s what he learns about Caesar that will help shape his destiny and more importantly his view on humans. The other great part about the story is there are still humans, but not all of them have completely disintegrated into dumb animals who can’t speak. There are still some who have intelligence and even though we know that will eventually fade and that Apes will be the dominant species, it’s this idea that helps shape the main theme of the movie. Should humans be subjugated like apes once were? Can apes and humans coexist because we did see that theme play out in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. We also feel more sympathy and connect to the humans through the main character of May played by Freya Allen who is just as fantastic in this movie as she is playing Cirilla in The Witcher.

The best part about this movie is not necessarily the action although the action scenes are incredible all the way to the final battle, but it’s the journey of these characters to determine their destiny. You get a true hero’s journey with two different characters who have different conceptions of how the world should be, but want to find that common ground and believe that apes and humans can coexist. It would be easy for this movie to be dominated by action and lose the point of the story, but it doesn’t. This film perfectly embodies a hero’s journey that is built upon discovery more than action. And of course, you get the militant characters who want to control everything for themselves. That too is a common theme in a hero’s story because they stand for everything the hero fights against. The performances really stand out in this movie. While we do not have Andy Serkis portraying an ape anymore, he didn’t take the route of Roddy McDowall in the original movies who played multiple characters, we still have great actors playing Apes. Owen Teague confidently steps up to the plate and carries this movie while Freya Allen plays a great heroine. There’s not much I didn’t like about this film.

I do have one complaint.. one major complaint! You know I can’t say this movie is absolutely perfect, almost, but the sharpest criticism I have is not enough world-building! This is an entirely new world within the Planet of the Apes universe. It may still be Earth, but we’re talking about a story set hundreds of years after Caesar’s death, we’re not familiar with it anymore! This is where world-building is a major factor to understanding the story. Sure, it’s great to have a little bit of an intro at the beginning of the movie to explain where we’re at, but it isn’t enough, and we barely scratched the surface of what has been happening with the Apes over the last few hundred years since Caesar’s death. We don’t understand the structure. On the one hand, we have an ape who has his own kingdom or what he thinks is his kingdom and then we have Apes who have formed clans. But how did that all come about? And we barely get to know the elder who has kept the secrets of Caesar and his legacy alive through his what appears to be a monastic order. What is the order of Caesar? How did they get established? There are too many questions that need to be answered on how the world has been shaped hundreds of years since the last movie. And more importantly, how have the humans who haven’t fallen sick and lost the power of speech still surviving? One of the most brilliant things a film did to bring the audience up to speed between sequels is with Blade Runner 2049. It had been 30 years since the last story, so we needed to know the state of the world and the role of replicants in that world. The filmmakers gave us three short films that helped explain significant events that led to the world that we see in Blade Runner 2049. I think that concept would have been great for the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

Now while this is a sharp criticism, do not get me wrong, this is a great film that should be seen on the big screen. And there should be sequels because we need to know more about this world that inches us closer to the first time we’re introduced to the Planet of the Apes with Colonel Taylor and how that world evolved over thousands of years. But there are a lot of great callbacks within this film to the original Planet of the Apes movies. Even the underground bunker seems to make you think that that may have been the archaeological site that Taylor and the apes visit in the original Planet of the Apes movie…it was filled with dirt and rock over thousands of years. My favorite call back and yes this is a bit of a spoiler is the picking up of the doll that says “mama!” If you remember your Planet of the Apes lore, it was that same doll that proved humans existed before apes because no ape would make a doll that talked, and it proved the ape’s sacred teachings were wrong. Yes, this movie does a great job connecting to the original films even if this particular story may be in another universe… Sure, there may be parallel universes in Planet of the Apes. Tim Burton sort of teased that at the end of his shitty remake of the original film! There’s a lot to like about this film and even if we don’t know enough about the world that it’s set in, that’s what sequels are for. This latest installment has a well-crafted story that certainly doesn’t feel too long or too short. It has the perfect amount of action and great storytelling that makes for a fantastic film. But more importantly, introduces us to wonderful characters that become the perfect replacement for Caesar. There’s still a lot of stories to tell and I feel like this film is just the beginning. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a wonderful film that doesn’t diminish the legacy of Caesar’s stories in the first three reboot movies and certainly doesn’t take away from the original five Planet of the Apes movies. In fact, I would go as far as to say that enhances the original story while creating its own legacy within this universe with wonderful characters whose stories need to continue. I hope we get to see that on the big screen. The Planet of the Apes franchise is one of the greatest science fiction stories ever created and this latest installment, even if it’s technically part of the reboot series keeps the Legacy of Planet of the Apes alive with vigor and a lot of potential. Go see this movie on the big screen especially if you are a fan of the Planet of the Apes movies, you won’t be disappointed!