★★★

Three hundred years have passed since our last visit to the Planet of the Apes. It’s felt like it. In real world terms, that’s seven years since Andy Serkis’ Caesar expired his mortal coil, mere moments after his band of superior simians finally reached the paradisal Oasis. The legacy of Serkis – and, indeed, his chimpanzee counterpart – weigh heavily on Kingdom, film four in the reboot era. Coming from an already high bar, the advancement is astonishing and the apes have never looked, nor swung, better. Humanity, meanwhile, has regressed. You decide on which side of the screen.

A focus on character and narrative preamble lends Kingdom a more sedate pace than its Matt Reeves predecessors. This is the input of incoming director Wes Ball, who cut his dystopian teeth on the Maze Runner films, and writer Josh Friedman, whose lessons in style over substance from James Cameron have clearly paid off. That’s not to say Kingdom is entirely weightless; no, just that the overriding sense here is that the best is yet to come. Assuming success, Kingdom is poised as the first in a new trilogy, each one edging the story ever closer to Franklin J. Schaffner’s original 1968 adaptation of the Pierre Boulle novel. As things stand, November 25, 3978 remains some way off.

Speech is no longer a rarity among the apes – Caesar’s ‘No!’ is a distant memory – but theirs is a simple civilisation. The reference point, it seems, is paganism and Native culture. There are elders, hierarchies and rights of passage. Much time and effort are, meanwhile, devoted to eagle training, an idea conceived for effect rather than contextual logic. In the absence of Serkis, Owen Teague leads as Noa, a wide eyed chimpanzee, driven by his thirst to impress and faith in the system. It’s a knowingly familiar arc that ramps up Noa’s youthful uncertainty early in the film, only for a stoic resolve to descend through experience beyond camp. Caesar’s fondness for humanity was born of his having seen the race’s potential for good. Kingdom ponders how different that might have been had the story played backwards.

Whichever which way, the Rise to War formula remains largely in tact here. There are good apes and bad apes; good humans and bad ‘uns. As per, the rotten sort are more visually ragged, while the decent have soulful eyes and soft features. While Peter Macon proves an underused joy as Raka, a Bornean orangutan who lives by the old ways, Kevin Durand is suitably vile as the tyrannical bonobo Proximus Caesar, whose interest in human history recalls a recent meme. Turns out bonobo monarchs think about the Roman Empire even more than the average 21st century man.

As for the human contingent, Freya Allan makes for an intriguing rep as Mae. The development of her expected bond with Noa proves gently affecting viewing but it’s her impact on films two and three that really count. Ball’s directive is to inject moral ambiguity into a dynamic that has, before now, been largely clear cut. To that end, Kingdom teeters on the edge overestimating the willingness of its audience to hang fire in the hope of livelier entries to come. It remains to be seen as to whether the prevalent feeling coming out of the film is one of fervent desire for more. That said, the pull of the franchise cannot be denied. There are no other films around in which apes can be seen riding horseback.

Certainly, it’s the visuals of the piece that really stand it apart. Kingdom’s world is a feast for the eyes – all lushly green and expansive – and thrill to explore. In an age of climate crises, there’s grim fascination in the realisation of an alternate future in which nature wins. What a world that would be. Give it another three hundred years, you never know.

T.S.