151. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

 An oldie which I've had stored for emergencies this week as my cinema plans for this week fell through. 

So I still haven't seen the second and third movie of the rebooted trilogy, however I am no longer sure I will bother. 

I can't massively comment on this movie, I was on antibiotics when we saw this movie back when it came out as I had tonsillitis again so they floored me and hilariously I fell asleep at the cinema which I have NEVER done. But from what I saw and vaguely remember, I will happily tell you not to bother with this movie and here are my reasons why.

Jamie is a big fan of the Planet of the Apes franchise as mentioned back in my review of the first one. So I find myself being dragged to the cinema a few days within opening night to view the newest one which I am promised will be amazing and then we can recap with the previous movies after. Even Jamie agreed that there is no longer a point in me watching the others as this movie disappointed him so much it has tarnished his view on the whole thing.

From what I remember, we find ourselves several years in the future. The Earth is primarily primates and the remaining humans are shunned and in hiding. They are depicted as dumb, mute, and trouble. Basically the tables are turned on the primate/human standpoint of current times, we become the wild animals, they become top of the food chain. 

Noa, the son of his particular clan's falconer, stumbles across a raid from a different tribe, if you will. These apes kill his father and take his mother, his lover, and his friends hostage. When travelling to reunite with them, Noa stumbles across an Orangutan who imparts knowledge regarding humans onto him as a historical and sympathetic primate, and then Mae who is an intelligent human. 

While a scuffle ensues between him and Mae, trust is then built, and then Noa basically becomes her saviour and stands up for her against this radical tribe run by Proximus Caesar.

Then I fell asleep and cant really tell you what happened, but I did wake up by the end where Noa saves his family, sort of helps Mae who also kinda throws it back in his face. Then she takes some techy stuff to some other smart humans who broadcast a signal to other humans and looks like next instalment we might be going to space? I dunno, this stuff crazy.

I'm not going to lie to you, not only was the CGI iffy, but the plot was patchy, the movie was appalling long considering nothing actually happened, and this was just a confusing movie. I know I missed a lot that may have been explained during the previous instalments, but I still had no idea what was going on. To be fair, Jamie didn't either and he loves the other films.

We spent a good 20 minutes or so watching Noa and his friends collect eggs for a coming of age/falconry celebration that had no relevance to the movie whatsoever and seemed to be just an attempt to flesh out the movie and show off the less than impressive CGI. It was no wonder I fell asleep halfway through, genuinely nothing happened, it was just an exhibition. Even when the fight scenes between Proximus and Noa took place, it was pointless. The whole movie seemed pointless.

I do have to commend Freya Allen for her acting in the film though, it must have been tough. Same goes for Owen Teague, must have been hard carrying a terrible movie on your back while pretending to be an ape. I cant knock the cast or the acting, but I can knock the writing and the direction. How they didn't know this was going to be a box office flop I dont know. This is a franchise killer.

Overall then, I give Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes a 3/10. It was something to do and I will never be doing it again. It was ambitious, I cant fault that, but it was bad. Some people may enjoy it, just like I enjoyed Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, but this just wasn't my cup of tea and there was no nostalgia here to be my rose coloured glasses. There was just apes.

Did you see this movie? Leave a comment on my socials!