Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes movie review: Unceasingly grim film treads familiar ground

Even granted the technical finesse, which is a long way from when Charlton Heston wore the monkey suit, it is all a bit too familiar ground now. From one film to the other, we can bet that either apes will have the upper hand, or the humans, with only snatches of detente in between.

We are “many generations later” from when Caesar, the leader of the apes played to great effect and pathos by Andy Serkis, led his followers into an oasis of existence. So much so that the new leader who will emerge from this film’s journey of finding himself, Noa, has not heard or been told about Caesar.

As societies tend to do, the apes too have split up into groups while humans are almost non-existent. Noa’s clan is a peace-loving, elder-respecting tribe that rears eagles. The most adventurous thing an adulting Noah has ever encountered is climbing to the ‘Top Nest’ to steal an eagle’s egg. They each must have one to pass a “bonding day” ritual, with the egg eventually hatching into their very own eagle.

There is something to be said about this exercise of stealing eggs from an eagle’s nest, but as Noa and his friends establish very clearly: they “always leave one” for the poor bird. The same day as Noa is to clear the bonding day ritual, his clan is attacked by another ape group — wearing rusted marks and carrying taser-like shafts, a species much bigger and far too menacing than Noa’s.

The inevitable happens, Noa sees his father brutally killed and his clan “stolen”. So now he must go looking for them, and along the way, find a wise orangutan called Raka and a scared human called Mae. Raka tells him what Caesar truly stood for, and not what the attacking clan’s leader, who also spouts his name, stands for. One of those lessons is that Caesar led with “decency, morality, strength, compassion”. Another that the same should also be extended to humans.

Like the previous Planet of the Apes films and their incipient messages, be it about the cost of war and racial conflict, or dangers of lab experiments tinkering with genes, this one too has one: how heroes first become divinity and then myth, their stories modulated according to the one doing the telling.

This is how Proximius, who has an imprisoned, resigned human (Macy) regaling him with Roman history, has imagined himself as the new Caesar. And has got himself a captive audience, who repeats after him every morning as he stands on a podium: “What a wonderful day!”

Proximus rules by power of strength as well as the power of his words, convincing his people that it is “their time”, and “my turn” to lead them to it. It is tempting to draw parallels here to our present, and perhaps the filmmakers intend so. However, while they execute the battles this implies with much flourish, with actors as both humans and apes putting up decent performances, we have seen the ending too many times before.

Plus the film is unceasingly grim, with no moments of levity to make us pine for what is at stake. Neither is a cavernous vault holding humanity’s secrets and the key to its re-emergence at the top of the pyramid, from the primitive, speech-less form it has receded into, the most attractive of battlegrounds.

And surely, while this might be Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, it could have had more humans?