Andy Serkis didn't die for this
The girl can talk! – Clip from Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)
Ten years ago, author Drew McWeeny posed a question in the headline of his latest column: "Has life in an age of temporary magic numbed moviegoers to the fantastic?" Frustrated by the news of what would become 2016's Alice Through the Looking Glass, which he considered an unnecessary sequel to a movie everyone saw and no one really loved, McWeeny revisited the film's predecessor, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. He concluded that it was both a terrible film and a technical marvel. McWeeny's column articulated an existential crisis in both filmmaking and moviegoing: In a cinematic world without borders, the combination of extraordinary technological innovation and the lack of narrative ambitions matched the moviegoers.
Few recent films bring to mind McWeeny's words more than Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Wes Ball's standalone follow-up to the rebooted franchise that began with 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Unlike the previous trilogy, Kingdom is almost entirely an ape story. Noah (Owen Teague), a young chimpanzee from a secluded clan of eagle-rearing hunters, tries to free his people from the clutches of the warlord Proximus (Kevin Durand). Proximus wants to turn a world of various ape clans into a kingdom under his rule. The human Mae (The Witcher's Freya Allan) – who can talk, hundreds of years after a man-made virus robbed most humans of their intellect and voices – is caught between them.
As a story, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes rarely exceeds narrative competence. But because of its almost single-minded focus on the monkeys, its technical prowess in their rendering is always front and center. It's frankly incredible what the team at Wētā FX have done along with all of the film's other effects artists to bring the monkeys to life, give them all a distinct body language, and to faithfully transfer the actors' every tic and subtle expression to their faces. These are some of the most soulful digital creations ever seen in a blockbuster action film, and it's incredible to see them in a film so pedestrian.
