!!WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR Planet of the Apes MOVIES!!

(viewer discretion is advised)

With the falling of Caesar in War of the Planet of the Apes, we are given a new protagonist to follow set 300 years later after the war. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes follows Noa (Chimpanzee), a member of the Eagle clan who specialize in working with hawk-like creatures which they call Eagles.

Proximus Caesar (Bonobo Monarch) is a tyrant ruler who takes the Ideology of Caesar of “Together we are stronger” but not instead of working together with other apes, Proximus creates a labor camp for them to open an unknown vault.

With Noa’s clan abducted by Colonel Attar (Silverback Gorilla), a loyal servant to Proximus, Noa must now rescue his clan before they fall into Proximus’ palms.

With the help of an echo (what the primate’s call humans) and Raka following Cesar’s old teachings, we get an original story directed by Wes ball (mainly known for his Maze Runner films).

I believe that this film was fascinating and did extremely well for a stand-alone film to an already famous franchise. Prior to watching the film, I only really remembered Caesar as the main ape in the other movies and only knew it was about chimpanzees invading the planet. Although I wasn’t aware of the previous films’ plot, this film’s story is only based on what happened 300 years after, so it didn’t necessarily matter. There were plenty of moments in the film where the audience sympathizes with Noa, and I believe it would be difficult to do so if he weren’t a primate. (seeing his family getting tossed around by a Gorilla was devastating to say the least.) The casting was amazing with recognizable voices and characters from all different corners of media. The score of the film was motivating, there wasn’t a moment in which I didn’t jump out of my seat because of the beautiful sounds of nature blending in with the soundtrack.

Similar to this awesome movie, I would recommend reading The Darwin Incident, a manga about a half chimpanzee, half human living amongst humans. With more than 20 chapters featured in the Shonen Jump and soon to come serialization, in my personal opinion, this manga is great for people interested in the Planet of the Apes concept.