Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes review: A gripping story that rattles along towards an intriguing codaWhatever else may have gone right with the recent Planet of the Apes films, you couldn’t say the titles tripped off the tongue. Too much “of the” going on there. If Rise of the Planet of the Apes was a mouthful, then Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a linguistic atrocity. One longs to call it “Kingdom of the Apes”, but I suppose you need the brand up front.
That’s not quite where we are here. As the action begins, several centuries after the previous film concluded, Noa , a lively young chimp, is living in apparent harmony within a community that trains eagles to defend and hunt. It seems a decent sort of place, but technology is still rudimentary and literacy has not been achieved. Humans, for all we see of them, look to be in an even less sophisticated position.
Long before we get there, the film indulges itself with a few gestures towards John Ford’s The Searchers. An attack by an unknown ape faction on the Eagle Clan leaves their dwellings smouldering and renders many dead. Noa and colleagues set off on a journey that ultimately brings them – via a shore that recalls the end of the 1968 movie – to a slave colony ruled by a mouthy, tyrannical gorilla named Proximus Caesar.