Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes
released 2024
www.ink2quill.com

“Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes” is an action, sci-fi American film produced by Wes Ball, Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, Amanda Silver, Jason Reed, Rick Jaffa and Joe Hartwick Jr. The screenplay was written by Josh Friedman, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver and directed by Wes Ball. This is the fourth installment of the “Planet Of The Apes – rebbot” series of films. The entire series was inspired by the novel “Planet Of The Apes” written by the French author Pierre Boulle. It stars Owen Teague, Freya Allen, Kevin Durand, Peter Macon, William H. Macy, Eka Darville, Travis Jeffery, Neil Sandilands, Ras-Samuel, Sara Wiseman, Kaden Hartcher, Andy McPhee, Karin Konoval, Nina Gallas, Samuel Fale, Dichen Lachman, Virginie Laverdure, Markus Hamilton, Benjamin Scott, Nirish Bhat Surambadka, Frances Berry, Peter Hayes, Sheree Da Costa, Souleymane Diasse, Olga Miller, Dmitriy Miller, Anastasia Miller, Michael Spudic.

Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes IMDb webpage

“Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes” takes place on an Earth where humanity, the human species, has all but annihilated itself. This story takes place after the demons of war and weaponized technologies have decimated the human species and forced the human survivors underground in bunkers. Also, this takes place several generations after the passing of the Great Ape, Caesar where his ghost still lingers in ape culture worldwide offering inspiration and guidance to the different ape cultures of the various clans.

The story begins with the ape Noa, played by Owen Teague, a member of the Eagle Clan climbing a decayed skyscraper with his two friends to find eagle eggs for their upcoming rituals. The eagle clan lives in the shadow of a decayed human city with overgrown vegetation everywhere pushing through every crevice and crumbling skyscraper. Remnants of the intelligent human civilization that once lived there are everywhere. The eagle clan are peaceful apes and only concern themselves with tending to their eagles and raising their young. They use trained eagles to hunt fish, and other prey.

However, everything changes with the arrival of an ‘echo’ or human named Nova/ Mae, played by Freya Allan. The humans that live above ground cannot speak and are essentially primitive beasts. Above ground it is the Eagle Clan of apes that are civilized but they keep a very respectful balance with nature, their environment and leave the savage humans alone. Like I stated above, everything changes with the arrival of Mae. She brings a hostile clan of gorillas to the eagle clan who destroy the village kill most of the inhabitants, kidnap the survivors and force them into slavery. Not to give away too many spoilers, Mae, who turns out to be a member of the underground humans and on a mission, will most probably bring about the demise of ape culture. She poses as an innocent, uncivilized surface human in order to deceive Noa and accomplish her mission. She is a ruthless agent on a mission for the humans below.

I have to say that I was reticent to see this film at first. I did not want watch a film saturated with the sexism of the day where the male roles are always marginalized and pushed to the side. However, this is not the case with this film. This is a well written, balanced script that deals with some serious issues you see in many sci-fi stories like whether the human race would ever share the world, or our galaxy, with other intelligent and sentient humanoids, especially those that are weaker? Darwin was right, for the most part, when he stated that the fiercest competition in the animal kingdom happens with species that have the most in common.

The writers did a good job with this script and it’s well worth the watch. The main characters are not necessarily heroes in the classical sense of the word with good on one side and evil on the other. They are flawed and have sinister ulterior motives, but they drive the story very well. The main characters like Mae are capable heroes but they have some very sinister ulterior motives. The gorilla clan and humans who live underground have no intention of sharing the world with anyone else. That is a sad fact for the future of peaceful apes and people. War and genocide are in the offing. I hope I did not give away too many spoilers.

One interesting idea that this story brought up was how a great person influences cultures as time goes by. Their achievements, speeches and actions can be reinterpreted and misinterpreted as time passes. This can have devastating consequences to societies. This is true of history, the lives of great people, events and the like. And the written word does not stop this from happening either. This happens in oral and written traditions alike. Demagogues know this fact and in this story the guerilla despot Proximus Caesar, played by Kevin Durand, knew this well. He took the image of Caesar and warped it into a philosophy of warfare and enslavement of other apes.

I know that this film will have a sequel and I am really looking forward to seeing it too. Even though I suspect that the future might be a grim one for the apes I would like to see the sequel because this film was so good. With the violent gorillas on one end and scheming, genocidal humans on the other the survival of apes is not at all certain. Only the smartest and most well intentioned of leaders will be able to navigate these future events coming down the pipeline for the apes.

This is a surprisingly good film with good themes, great ideas and great world building. This film is worth the watch. So, go check it out.

John Ink2Quill

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