Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Year: 2024
Rating: PG-13
Length: 145 minutes / 2.42 hours
With how difficult it is to pull of a trilogy that doesn’t have any significantly bad entries, it’s almost impossible to make a successful movie that sits as the fourth entry outside that trilogy. Plenty of “fourth” films never hit the mark their predecessor trilogy did. This was why I had to roll my eyes when Hollywood added another movie on top of the already well-done Planet of the Apes prequel trilogy. Well, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) proved me wrong.
By giving itself enough distance from the Caesar story arc, Kingdom threads that needle that connects the lead-up events to the very first film in the franchise. Even if most of the fundamental concepts have already been covered in this franchise, there are still enough surprising moments here to make it an excellent entry—which is also what made the original 1968 movie so memorable. It truly felt as if the audience was getting the understanding of the original movie’s plot through the viewpoint of the apes this time.
What’s perhaps the most important point with Kingdom is how relevant it is to today’s society. Sure, there were a lot of great action and battle sequences, but underneath everything is a society that’s founded on hero worship. That uses nostalgia and catchy slogans to rally apes to their cause. If history repeats itself in the real world, then what’s to say that we can’t see it happen in the Planet of the Apes? While the reboot prequel trilogy was excellent, it paved the way for Kingdom to be absolutely superb.
The rare fourth film that surpasses the solid trilogy that came before it, I give Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes 5.0 stars out of 5.
