The Planet of the Apes movies have always tackled ideas about evolution. So, it’s fitting that the latest instalment takes the series in an exciting new direction: centring the simians and telling the story through their perspective.
The idea of evolution is at the heart of the Planet of the Apes franchise. The first movie was released in 1968 and was based on the novel by Pierre Boulle. It kick-started a long-running sci-fi franchise, including four other films in the ’70s, a live-action TV series, an animated one, a remake film, and then a rebooted film trilogy. Over the decades, the franchise has taken different forms, continuing to capture audiences’ imaginations. Beneath the fantastical sci-fi premise lie many resonant themes — including man’s relationship with nature and the possibilities and dangers of scientific advancements — and commentary on social classes.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and War for the Planet of the Apes, all starring Andy Serkis as the lead simian character Caesar, received critical acclaim. The trilogy is often cited as a reboot done right. For most of the franchise’s history, the ape characters were played by actors in costumes and prosthetic makeup. The reboot trilogy pushed technology forward with performance capture acting and digital character animation, giving the apes more realistic proportions, expressions, and movement. This approach makes sense as the ape characters were yet to become completely human-like, and that trilogy depicted the beginning of the apes’ ascension and humankind’s decline.
Now, the tables have turned. In Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (KotPotA), set about 300 years after the events of War for the Planet of the Apes, ape civilisation has advanced, while much of the remaining human population has regressed, becoming feral and mute. Apes are largely dominant over humans. In many ways, KotPotA’s premise and setting are similar to that of the 1968 original movie, but this movie emphasises the apes’ perspective far more than its progenitor — a switch-up that brings a breath of fresh air to the film series.
Noa (Owen Teague) is a young chimpanzee from the Eagle Clan. When his family and friends, including his mother, Dar (Sara Wiseman) and his friends, Anaya (Travis Jeffery) and Soona (Lydia Peckham), are kidnapped, Noa searches for them. He is joined by orangutan Raka (Peter Macon) and a mysterious human woman named Mae (Freya Allan), whom the apes dub ‘Nova’. Noa’s compatriots have been captured by Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), a bonobo who has declared himself king and misappropriates Caesar’s legacy for his own gain. Noa and Mae must form an uneasy alliance to defeat Proximus Caesar and free Noa’s friends and family from his tyrannical grasp.
KotPotA begins to build a bridge from the previous trilogy to the far-future setting of the original film, showing how the apes have conquered the world. Director Wes Ball, who helmed The Maze Runner films, says he was initially sceptical about continuing from the reboot sequels. “You need to have that distance, so you’re not just constantly compared or tethered to that trilogy. Having that time jump was a big opening to me,” he tells The Wrap. Ball hopes the movie stands on its own but is also cognisant of its place in the franchise, telling Filmhounds, “We’re not trying to replace it or redo anything, we’re just trying to do another chapter in this long legacy of 10 movies now over 55 years.”
This chapter delivers even more spectacular visual effects, taking advantage of technological advancements in the seven years between the last Apes film and this one. New Zealand-based company Wētā FX returns, creating apes who are slightly more evolved, human-like, and more expressive than ever but still recognisably animalistic. The company applies some of the techniques it developed for the Oscar-winning Avatar: The Way of Water to create sequences in which the apes interact with water, which is notoriously difficult to render realistically in CGI. While location shooting in New South Wales, Australia, imbues the post-apocalyptic world with tactility, the movie also features 33 minutes of footage that is completely computer-generated, seamlessly combining them.
KotPotA marries cutting-edge visual effects with an old-fashioned, sweeping sense of adventure, paying homage to the franchise’s rich history while also being timely, just as the earlier films were. “The cool thing about this franchise is that every movie is a reflection of where we are as humans,” star Teague tells Esquire, describing the movie as “the Planet of the Apes story for this time”.
Ball envisions KotPotA as the first entry in a new trilogy and has mapped out the plots for the next two movies if he gets to make them. “We have lots of opportunities there in the ape/human dynamic, the continued struggle to coexist — lots of drama, lots of conflict, and hopefully, a lot of emotion,” Ball says of how the series could continue to evolve. The apes may have the upper hand for now, but that is something that could change in future movies.
Generations after Caesar’s reign, one ape emerges to define the future.
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