[Review] Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes (5.5/10)

 

Title - Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes
Production - Oddball Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Jason T. Reed Productions
Starring - Owen Teague, Freya Allan, Kevin Durand, Peter Macon, William H. Macy, Eka Darville, Travis Jefferey, Lydia Peckham, Sara Wiseman, Neil Sandilands, Ras-Samuel
Writer - Josh Friedman, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver
Director - Wes Ball
Release - 10 May 2024

The problem with this instalment was the writing of Freya Allan's character into the story. She was forced into the life of Owen Teague's ape character in the magically-appearing sense.

She appeared in his camp. She appeared while he was travelling on the road, on horseback. She was on foot with no shoes. And for someone who was supposed to be sheltered, I found it hard to believe she could survive without injury in the jungle with no shoes on; let alone run from a fight or keep up with horses. It's not like she's swinging from the vines.

And for all intent and purposes, Teague's ape started off as one that did not know violence. Along the road, not once did he show he was somehow resources or had any advantage against his enemies. So why would Allan's character chose to follow him?

It's good to see William H. Macy appearing on the big screen again, though he was quite useless. But more importantly, there was this disconnect in the timeline where enough time had passed and those humans left in the wild had been infected by a disease that rendered them speechless and, hence, went through devolution. But then there's Macy's character still well, even though he's living on the outside. So how come there was such a big gap between those infected and living like cavemen, and then there are those "normal" ones?

And then there was that big showdown at the end. If Allan's character had already planned properly with Teague's ape character, shouldn't Teague directed the apes to run towards the direction of safety, a.k.a. wherever Allan was running? Instinctively, why run into a giant container that's a dead end?

When characters are shown to make these kinds of nonsensical decisions, I tune out.

But aesthetically, this world looked beautiful even though probably more than 90% of it was CGI.