Director Wes Ball is not in a hurry for the big scenes. He takes his time, not for gimmick or for art’s sake. His pacing — slow at first — is crucial to the storytelling. But no matter how yawn-inducing the first act is, there is still a sense of something major brewing and both you and Ball are aware that you should trust the process. 

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is Part 4 of the Apes modern series, the genesis of which began in the 2011 James Franco-starrer and which introduced us to the would-be-ape-king Caesar (the legendary, motion-capture great Andy Serkis). 

In Kingdom, the Moses-like Caesar has long been dead — 300 years ago, to be exact. If one recalls in Part 3 (War for the Planet of the Apes), an injured Caesar led his colony of apes to the Promised Land but died upon arrival. 

Kingdom opens to an Earth now ruled by superintelligent apes divided into clans and tribes. Humans are now called “echoes,” reduced to primitive, non-speaking animals and merely part of the wildlife. 

There are strong biblical allegories here, such as a prophet-like and forgotten Caesar and his original teachings corrupted by “false prophets.” The apostasy clearly took place before the events of Kingdom.

When Ball, working on Josh Friedman’s brilliant screenplay, first introduced our new would-be hero, the central character Noa (Owen Teague), he let us simmer for a while to grasp the external and internal world of this young, innocent chimp from the Eagle Clan. 

Noa’s innocence and ignorance of history, including Caesar’s canonical laws, is a fantastic, refreshing way to begin a new story, which makes Kingdom more, in essence, a reboot, and also a sequel to the 1968 Charlton Heston original. 

The courage in Noa’s heart is what makes this naive chimp special, and Kingdom provides us with the makings of a new, benevolent, ape ruler. 

Major supporting characters flanking our hero are the scholarly and wise orangutan Raka (wonderfully voiced by Peter Macon), who is just beginning to indoctrinate Noa with Caesar’s true dogma, and a female echo/human called Nova (Freya Allen), who follows Noa around for a mysterious reason that the movie gradually reveals.

When Noa’s Eagle Clan is suddenly taken violently by the bonobo despot Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand) — one of the best blockbuster villains in recent history — and who kind of imbues the vibe of Prince Malagant of First Night (1995), it is the beginning of Noa’s transformation. 

Proximus Caesar, literally meaning “the next Caesar,” preaches the supposed gospel of Andy Serkis’ Caesar. Proximus speaks Caesar’s words, sure, but now it’s all twisted and deceptive. 

This is post-apocalyptic Babylon, painted in breathtaking visuals best seen in IMAX for its scope. The powerful story is backdropped with artfully done long-forgotten man-made structures and ruined cities covered in sun-dappled dense vegetation.   

Ball is adept at building tension, fear, and hope. Action sequences are cleverly done and choreographed to evoke a strong sense of danger — no random, lazy, snappy editing here. 

But the film’s thrills are not confined to the action sequences alone, but also in our hero’s pursuit of truth and knowledge, as well as the analysis of intriguing character motives. 

Everything is intimate here, zoomed in on the emotional and intellectual state of its main players, especially Noa, who is suddenly thrown into a painful journey towards enlightenment. And, quite excitingly, we know that he is getting prepared for his big role in the future. 

What makes this sci-fi absorbing are the provocative themes of power, control, prejudice and greed, war and freedom, and how these are expressed so effectively that the movie’s intention for the viewer to side with the Apes is achieved right from the beginning. Yes, we are Team Apes — finding ourselves emotionally invested in Noa’s quest. Yet, we also empathize with the humans. 

This is a story that makes use of the power of intelligence and its capacity to do evil. This, and the biblical parallelisms, the smart science-fiction and mythology, history and evolution, and human nature, all make for a compelling, deeply moving story. 

Ball (Maze Runner) knows how to tell a story in a cohesive visual language. He avoids melodrama, which makes his film bristle with emotional undercurrents and subtexts.

The ending will get you fired up for the next chapter. 

4 out of 5 stars

Now showing in cinemas