In the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the natural extension of War of the Planet of the Apes (2017), the story shifts to the point in the future that could seamlessly link this rebooted franchise with the Charlton Heston-starrerThe Planet of the Apes from 1968 — the film that started the film series about intelligent apes dominating feral humans.

The Apes series technically began as a French novel by Pierre Boulle in 1963, and led to Heston’s film, a cartoon series and four more movies (Beneath, Escape, Conquest and Battle of the Planet of the Apes, respectively), before being rebooted by Tim Burton in 2001, and then again rebooted In 2011.

To be honest, one could always find a soft-spot for the film series; maybe it has something to do with the evolved simians’ emotive eyes or their sincere body language — whatever the reason was, it just felt right siding against fellow humans.

The first batch of this particular reboot — Rise, Dawn and War of the Planet of the Apes, respectively — sets up the building blocks for humanity’s imminent demise by telling the story of Caesar (performed brilliantly by Andy Serkis), the kind-hearted, genetically modified ape who fought for the rights of his people.

With Kingdom, set a few generations after War, we are at that point when apes, good as they are, may finally be the bad guys. This is where the film gets complicated.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes remains engaging and doesn’t betray the overall tone of the film series

Ceasar’s replacement is Noa (Owen Teague), a young chimpanzee who has just come to age. Noa, who belongs to a bird-breeding clan settled outside the ruins of Los Angeles, unwittingly leads Mae (Freya Allen), a human who has not become feral like the rest of humanity and retains her powers of speech, to his village.

Mae’s interaction with the chimps leads to disaster, as the more militant faction of Apes, led by the gorilla Sylva (Eka Darville), raid the village and enslave Noa’s clan. Noa and Mae, along with Raka (Peter Macon), a sagacious orangutan, eventually find themselves standing against Proximus Ceaser (Kevin Durand), the self-elected king of the Apes, who is after forbidden human technology.

Like the previous entries, Kingdom takes its sweet time setting up and culminating its brief plot. The story itself can easily be jotted down in four or five paragraphs, but the screenplay by Josh Friedman (War of the Worlds), faithfully — and engagingly — expands them into a semi-engaging two-hour-long film.

The story doesn’t have many surprising reveals. Yet for some odd reason, one does not get annoyed with the apes or the slow progress; maybe it is the big emotive eyes and the sensitive performances I mentioned before.

At this point, one doesn’t need to talk about the visual effects, the animation and the photorealistic rendering — these are top notch (for a $160 million film, they ought to be). The more astonishing aspect is the growth of director Wes Ball, who directed the Maze Runner trilogy, a film series that came at the peak of the young adult, dystopian future trend in movies.

I remember not finishing that particular trilogy, because it didn’t feel engaging and original. Perhaps, Wes Ball needed time-out to reflect on his filmmaking skills or, perhaps, the chain of command over at 20th Century Fox had more influence over the end-product.

Whatever the reason, Kingdom’s end result doesn’t betray the wavelength and pace of the series. That’s a minor miracle in this age of movies that has all but forgotten how to deliver a cinema-worthy experience.

Released by 20th Century Fox and HKC, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is rated U and is suitable for audiences of all ages, irrespective of whether they had seen the first three movies or not

Published in Dawn, ICON, May 19th, 2024