Wes Ball’s The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes moves the world of the 2010s Apes trilogy multiple generations of apes into the future. Caeser (Andy Serkis) long deceased, the planet of the apes has mostly forgotten his impact on their world. Apes now live in clans, scattered around the ruins of human cities. One gorilla, who has adopted the name Caeser for himself, wants more than a clan. He desires an empire. Proximus Caeser (Kevin Durrand) violently destroys neighboring clans and brings the surviving apes into his kingdom.

This includes the “Eagle Clan” of which young Noa (Owen Teague) is a part. Noa witnesses the death of his father at the hands of Proximus Caeser’s army, and embarks on a journey to find the rest of his kin, now kidnapped and forced to live under Caeser’s empire. On the periphery of Noa’s travels is a lone human (Freya Allan) following him and a lone orangutan (Peter Macon) who is more well-versed in ape history than most apes Noa has come across.

The setting of Kingdom – from its steep cliff faces to its growth-covered city to Proximus Caeser’s abundant kingdom –is visually sumptuous. The strong effects work of the previous three films also carries over, aided in some cases by standout physical performances (Durrand and Macon make appropriately-portioned meals out of the motion capture).

The story of Kingdom, meanwhile, struggles. For much of its runtime, it moves through themes and narrative beats familiar to the Apes franchise. The film spins its wheels on questions of humane/inhumane treatment of species other than one’s own. The script broaches something slightly new in the figure of Proximus, whose desire for immortality provides an intriguing counter to Caeser’s thrust-upon heroism.

But this theme of manufacturing kings is side-lined in favor of a weak story about technological innovation and the uneasy trust apes and humans may (or may not) be able to maintain. The result is a lengthy climax with little in the way of climactic motion. The journey toward this climax is also sluggish, hampered by the longest runtime this franchise has seen and an act of quiet rumination between three characters who are never fully fleshed out enough to warrant the meditations (it doesn’t help that the subject of these meditations is well-trod territory for the Apes films, going all the way back to 1968).

For what it’s worth, there are a handful of well-captured set pieces. The opening sequence, involving Noa and two of his young compatriots scaling high cliffs in search of eagle eggs, is gorgeous and exciting. But individual scenes don’t work enough at establishing a foundation for a new period of Apes films (Kingdom, it seems, is an attempt at a new trilogy). There is no Caeser here to ground a lengthy epic yarn on, nor a Charlton Heston figure to provide magnetic personality to this environment.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes: C+

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As always, thanks for reading!

—Alex Brannan (Letterboxd, Facebook)