Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

• I’ll straight up say it, I think this movie is underrated, and it nails almost all its elements in every aspect. I actually liked it better than both Rise and Dawn, which was surprising to me. Going into it, I thought there was no way it would surpass the Apes trilogy. But I walked out of the theater in absolute disbelief. It was just so good. I think the biggest thing that hit me was the change of scenery and characters. I really love the story of Caesar and his pals, but seeing a new central character with an awesome new antagonist was really nice. I absolutely love Noa. Owen Teague does a killer job, and you can tell he put a lot of effort into his performance. The same goes for Kevin Durand. Proximus Caesar certainly isn’t Koba, but he’s still menacing, egotistical, power hungry, and straight up cool. Another really big thing I loved about this movie was how much I’m reminded of the 60’s/70’s Apes movies. This one is new and original, but you can still see certain elements from past movies. Also, the way the movie is almost entirely full of apes was super nice. The Apes trilogy obviously has plenty of human characters and conflict, but this one only has two important human characters. Everyone else are apes. It makes you connect with them more, without any human distractions (besides Mae and Trevathan). The visual effects are absolutely phenomenal, and about as good as they get in the entire Apes franchise. The amount of detail put into the scenery and character designs was truly remarkable. The score was phenomenal, with super strong moments that gave me serious chills. This movie is just amazing. The story, the promising ending, the characters, I absolutely adored it. I’d recommend it to all sci-fi/adventure fans. This film is officially Berry Approved, so go see it now!