Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) takes place roughly three hundred years after the Caesar trilogy and changes the series' central question. In the earlier films the question was whether the apes would survive. Here they have won, and the question becomes what happens after winning. The answer is not pleasant. An ape who calls himself Proximus Caesar inverts everything Caesar taught and builds an empire out of it. That is the film's best idea. Caesar died three hundred years ago and nobody remembers accurately who he was. His name has become a myth, and a myth can be used by whoever gets hold of it. Noa comes from a clan that raises eagles and is leaving his village for the first time. On the road he meets a human woman who can speak, and the tension of the film comes from there: does the human side come back. The visual effects are at a serious level. The expressions on the ape faces carry all of the emotion. The pace is slower than the previous trilogy and the ending opens a door to the next film rather than closing this one. It runs 145 minutes. Good for: science fiction, followers of the series, and dystopia. Less good for: newcomers will miss some references, the middle section is long, and the story does not fully resolve.