Nearly perfect Planet
PRAISE: Seven years after War of The Planet of the Apes I'm beyond satisfied that even though this assortment of Planet of the Apes films have been passed on to different writers and directors since 2011 Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes boldly states these films continue to be exciting, charming and involving. The story in this POTA chapter a new tyrannical ape leader builds his empire, one young ape undertakes a harrowing journey that will cause him to question all that he has known about the past. I think this movie flawlessly connects the previous movies to this present movie. While simultaneously bringing closure to the previous movies and pulling me into what is to be a new set of movies. High praise to the entire cast including:Noa (Owen Teague), Soona (Lydia Peckham), Anaya (Travis Jeffery) Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand),and Raka (Peter Macon)for their voice work, expressive motion capture displaying joy,anger and raw emotion. Freya Allan also does quite well as the human Mae. The film is in the capable and then some hands of Wes Ball. He directs some really great action sequences with suspense around the edges. Throughout the movie there are strong messages about twisting words for power and dominance and using the bad parts of history to also do the aforementioned. The motion capture work is still on point and looks incredibly flawless. Another strong thread in this story is the near selfishly caring about ones own survival this comes into play several times and I thought it was really effective. When it comes to the set design I was trying to tell what was practical and what was CGI,that's how great it looked,maybe I should watch a making of video of the movie but then again just enjoy the wonder of it all. There are great nods to the original Planet of the Apes movie.
PROBLEMS: I do feel like something that was touched on when it came to a certain faction was pushed to the side and was dissapointted when it wasn't explored more.
There are a few predictable moments.
Scale of 1 to 10 an 8½