The New ‘Planet of the Apes’ Sequel Is a Disappointing Slip on a Banana Peel

Evolution is at the heart of the Planet of the Apes franchise, and yet for its fourth installment in its current reboot phase (and tenth chapter overall), it doesn’t progress so much as stand still. Set generations after 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes, Wes Ball’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (in theaters May 10) gets close to the future that was first envisioned by Franklin J. Schaffner’s 1968 original, with apes now civilized and verbose, and humans mostly reduced to primitive muteness. As such, this sequel is an attempt to move forward by returning to its roots—a have-it-both-ways approach that prevents catastrophe but also neuters most of its novelty. Too often rehashing its myriad predecessors’ ideas, conflicts, and images, it’s a competent if unexceptional blockbuster game of monkey see, monkey do.

It’s been centuries since Caesar, the first hyper-intelligent ape, led his simian comrades to an idyllic sanctuary where they could thrive without the murderous interference of mankind. In this present, Noa (Owen Teague) and his friends Soona (Lydia Peckham) and Anaya (Travis Jeffrey) climb peaks to reach eagles’ nests in order to steal eggs as part of a ritual in which primates bond with fowl. Noa’s big day is spoiled the evening prior, however, when his egg is crushed during an encounter with a mysterious human intruder who scampers off into the dark before being caught. Desperate to find another egg, the young chimp ventures out of his village at night by himself, only to run into a group of deadly apes with buzzing zap sticks who find their way back to Noa’s peaceful forest-grove home and burn it to the ground, in the process enslaving its inhabitants and murdering Noa’s bird-taming father.

Driven to seek vengeance as well as to rescue his kin, Noa sets out through a tunnel to the forbidden “Valley Beyond,” where he meets orangutang Raka (Peter Macon), who teaches him about Caesar—and his belief that apes should stick together and not kill each other—and chooses to accompany him on his quest. They’re soon joined by an unlikely companion: Nova (Freya Allan), a feral human who’s trailing Noa and whose name is given to her by Raka in an homage to a character from War for the Planet of the Apes.

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