Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
The Andy Serkis Planet of the Apes trilogy, especially the middle entry, are some of my favourite movies ever. What the new sequel retains is the utter believability of the special effects. You really believe that you’re watching living apes, and that they are persons with thoughts and feelings.
I loved the first half of the film, which establishes the culture of the future ape society, through the main character Noa, and then the studies of a monk-like ape named Raka. If the film had stuck with the “buddy search quest” plotline, where the two of them try to find Noa’s missing clan, this would have been a home run. Unfortunately, the film loses steam for me when it introduces a triangular conflict involving a power-hungry self-proclaimed king ape, and a mysterious human girl. The focus shifts to a big action climax instead of fleshing out the motivations of the antagonist(s), and made me miss the moral complexity of the original trilogy.
