Rating: Full

Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure, Drama

Studios: 20th Century Studios

Cast: Owen Teague, Freya Allan, Kevin Durand, Peter Macon and William H. Macy

Director: Wes Ball

Writer: Josh Friedman

Based on: the characters

Producers: Wes Ball, Joe Hartwick Jr, Rick Jaffa, Jason T. Reed and Amanda Silver

Music by: Joe Paesano

Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence/action

Release Date: 05/10/24

Runtime: 2h 25m

Tagline: No one can stop the reign

Favorite Character: Mae

Quote: “What a Wonderful Day!”- Proximus Caesar

Fun Fact: The apes named all humans ‘Nova’ a homage to a mute human from the 1968 original.

The Review: 2011 is the year that Hollywood opens a new ‘Planet of the Apes’ book. Upgrading from the cheesy 60’s costumes to the motion capture CGI performances And so far, every one of the last 3 POTA films got an Oscar nomination for Visual FX, but no win.

You probably already knew that the 2017’s previous Ape film ended with the great tragedy. Our great Caesar passed away due to the wounds at the battlefield. It is a very tragic indeed. Hopefully, we can see Andy Serkis motion capture performance again with the flashbacks, if he is interested in playing the character one last time, if not, than the reuse of the footage from the previous POTA films is the best we can get.

The new trilogy means new setting. Technically, the new setting is still Earth. Just with less humans, no thanks to the manmade virus. So most of the humans are sadly gone. And those who did survive into 300 years lost their intelligence and became wild animals, think of it as the Darwin human evolution in reverse. Mother Nature takes the world by storm! And her design in the city may be really gorgeous and as stunning as Avatar’s Pandora, but as you learn from the Jurassic franchise, don’t mess with Mother Nature. Because the human race learned too late that she always win!

Noa ( lives a peaceful life in a new world, stealing eagle eggs from abandoned buildings and training them to be their companions at his village. What can go wrong? The answer would be a bunch of gorillas with electric weapons disrupting the harmony, terrorizing Noa’s village, killing his father and shoving him off the tower. Then he wakes up and finds everybody gone. All eagles are dead except for one that Noa struggles to befriend.

The adventure does provide us a bit of exploration of the new Earth, while gaining two new allies. One is Raka, a Orangutan who knew a bit about humans. And speaking of which, we are also introduced to Mae, who turns out to be one of the few humans on earth to still have the brains. The adventure eventually ends at the Kingdom of the Apes at the beach, ruled by Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand) with a quote (What a Wonderful Day) that echoes in my head. His goal was to open the mysterious vault of human stuff that he is obviously gonna misuse. Unless Noa and his reunited clan do something about it.

Wes Ball takes over the POTA story excellently, but it won’t be able to replace Matt Reeves. In fact, there is no characters in this movie that can replace Caesar (especially Proximus) but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the saga, so we might as well look forward to what’s yet to come in the few years. Hail Caesar!