Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes - Review 

It's so rare that a franchise these days have more than 2 directors (in this case, Rupert Wyatt, Matt Reeves, and now Wes Ball) involved with different visions but still remain consistently good from start to finish

This entire thing happened just because James Franco wanted his dad to remember stuff!

I hate how criminally underrated the Planet Of The Apes reboot trilogy was. Despite massive acclaim from critics and audiences, it's kinda sad how the trilogy doesn't really popped up to anyone's mind whenever they talk about movie trilogies

So cool to meet you last night after the screening Dan! I was so surprised when I got up and saw you behind us! Thanks for taking the time to talk and take a pic. A great movie made even better!

I think the title of the sequel will be "Reign of the Planet of the Apes", and the one after that "Fall of the Planet of the Apes".

can't wait for the third film in this new trilogy, Resolution to the Aftermath of the Battle for the Conquest of the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Man. What a relief. The reboots were one of my favorite trilogies of all time.

Planet of the Apes ranking when?

Andy Serkis also deserves credit on the reboot trilogy for being a 2nd. unit director due to his extensive experience with motion capture. Looking forward to seeing it on Sunday.

We really need to stop calling what these actors do in films like this 'motion capture' and start calling it for what it really is, 'performance capture'.

I can't wait for the sequel to be titled "Planet Of The Planet Of The Apes" 😂😂

Did you like how the Apes don’t even know what Zebras are? horses with stripes?

Chronicles of the Banana Republic: A Topsy-Turvy Odyssey on the Extraterrestrial Jungle Gyms of Simian Sovereignty, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Chimpocalypse on the Planet of the Apes

Great review, as always Dan. Your critiques always come from the heart and thus with total honesty and balance, thank you. Nice to see Kevin Durrand getting a second movie appearance this year (albeit that this one is a performance capture!), he's talented and I wish we saw him more.

I was a bit let down by the movie, but for the opposite reason Dan has - I wanted more human elements. That's the most interesting part of the setting to me. If they didn't want to show that, at least show a more interesting ape society than a small tribe in the jungle.

I mean, they have ruled for 300 years. I'd just take that as a win

Fall Guy kicked off the summer movie season for me, but KotPotA is one I’m still looking forward to seeing. The reboot series is some of the best Sci-fi of the last decade

The ending with Proximus was fantastic.

Yeah really good point about the third act, would have been a nice twist to have the same ending but have the third act driven more by Noa’s story. What was interesting was how jarring the continued presence of sentient humans on the planet was though, and the almost disgust at Mae’s opportunism compared to Noa’s innocence and altruism. Noa is the hero here, and to convince an audience to cheer for the apes with a new hero (not Caesar) is an impressive feat!

I really liked the fall guy, and I saw it with a packed crowd, sucks it didn't make more money

No, the sequel will be called '2 Apes, 2 Furious'.

Excited to see it on Tuesday morning! I just finished my rewatch of the Andy Serkis trilogy and forgot how good they were after not seeing them for years.

Great review Dan, I completely agree. I thought everything with the Apes was really compelling but the big reveals about the human story felt like it took us back to where we were in the previous two films.

the twist at the end was that it's all a Fallout game and Mae is a Vault Dweller LOL

I was planning on doing a rewatch before the new one hit theaters. Oh well

During the 300 year time - jump, did The Simian Flu virus died out right into the events of "Kingdom"? i really don't know how long viruses last.

I'm still looking forward to Dan's Godzilla-style ranking of Apes movies

I don't go to see a planet of the apes movie to see humans....I want a planet of the apes movie without humans in it at all. The humans are always the worse part.

As a new 2nd Sequel, it should call ‘The Human Strikes Back 😂

The third act definitely soured the film for me. And the final moments cutting between the humans and apes.

Andy Serkis should've received, if not get nominated, an Oscar for his groundbreaking work with the first three films. CGI is only as good as the person doing the performance. It's arguably no different than getting makeup or wearing a body suit for a role.

Just saw and loved it!!! Noah is such a deep and compassionate soul. Can't wait for the next films. CGI so good and I saw actors on TV and they nailed the actions of real simians. The ending reminded me of THE WALKING DEAD UNIVERSE so there are many ways this can go. Solid Grade A from me.

Well put. Getting quite excited with reviews and word of mouth. Trailers were already quite intriguing and thrilling.

My local smoke shop is called Planet of the Vapes. Just wanted to share that

I like the movie but feel like there were a lot of missed opportunities. Especially with the advancement of the apes. And it would have been cool to see a Koba clan.

I feel like this movie franchise might eventually fully become a long prequel to the 60’s and 70’s movies.

I personally think that the complex relationships between humanity and apes and the struggles of them constantly failing to live in harmony is one of the highlights of these stories.

I can't help but to think Disney forced their ideas into this film... Great story potential lost for me.

My wife is interested in this movie. Thats all i need to go see it. Im hyped.

Well said, Dan, I agree with pretty much everything you brought up. I also hoped it was more emotional, the same way the Caesar trilogy was for me. But still, solid movie and I’m interested to see where they take the franchise.

Hope to see it this weekend

Dan. On a separate note. Civil War has completely fallen off the charts. Nothing on "The Numbers" since Sunday. Do you have any insight on that?

Damn, I was hoping for a film that was high praise worthy! I'm in the same boat as you, having had my expectations blown away by the most recent trilogy. That said, still sounds interesting! I'll check it out (: Thanks for the review!

I think this is what I wanted the star wars sequels to do but didn't, move away from the skywalkers. Its good they moved away from caesar as they did hear.

Yes, but isn’t it also very unrealistic to expect Man to just go away quietly that would never happen

In my personal opinion POA has been the marker for where VFX is at the moment sense the latest series -- more than Avatar for sure

Personally I’m very curious to know what happened to Cornelius & Nova

I think it's a huge misstep that they are trying to bring humans back into the picture. I think it would've been more interesting if the apes were farther along the civilization process. I think early farming villages over hunter gatherer would've been interesting. And more politics than just brute action.

I kinda want the films to get into the weirder scfi elements of the older films. The Forbidden Zone, Mutants, and maybe introduce Dr. Hasling and perhaps the astronauts!!!!

I really didn’t like the ending. I don’t want more humans.

I didn't realize how long the title was til I had to type it out in discord after watching last night. I really enjoyed it. I do wish they didn't jump straight into Rise of the Planet of the Humans. I'd like to see an even more advanced Ape civilization but I'm still looking forward to what comes next.

Agreed that I’m not too interested in a man vs ape tug of war of power for another trilogy but in reverse.

Thanks for the video Dan!

Man Dan is psychic with me lool everything he is saying is what I was thinking about watching this

People love these movies because of how good the motion capture is. Imagine if other franchises were able to get this good of motion capture

If the reboots segue into the storyline of the original franchise then this is perfect. In the original movies of the 60’s and 70’s the apes are ruling thousands of years into the future. They will show humans efforts to retake earth and how it all plays out.

I enjoyed it. Kept thinking of how awesome the mocap was on Noah and Roka. I don’t want to see more humans but I am interested in knowing more.

The first trilogy of Planet of the Apes was fantastic. I look forward to seeing this one.

We are of mixed minds with this as one of us really enjoyed it while the other really didnt. But we both agree that this franchise needs to stop and that this story did not need to be told.

Agree that the human storyline undermined the third act. Honestly, this movie didn’t need the humans to be cool.

Seeing it Saturday and I can’t wait!

Thanks for the review! Subscribed

Dan’s review sounded like a It’s Fine kind of movie, but somehow it went with Its good. I will stay with your ‘Nothing here outweighs what’s done in the previous trilogy’ comment, save my money and wait for Furiosa. Thanks Dan!

Dan's opinion seems right down the middle compared to others ; Jeremy Jahns, John Campea and Stuckmann. My crew is very curious on this film now!

Watching this review after I saw the movie last night because I've become extremely sensitive to spoilers over the years 😂 I'm glad I had no idea Mae was smart or William H Macy was in this or what Raka's deal was. Going in blind was awesome and I loved the film. I agree though I'm kinda down on the sequel setup with the human story going forward but it could be good I guess we'll see, they already managed to surprise me with this one.

Good review. Still looking for a reviewer that talked about misinterpreted philosophy and dogma - which drives the underlying conflict of the entire film

I was going to buy a Blu-ray set of the original 3, but I guess I have to wait. This is interesting.

I'm going to see this Saturday. Can't wait, I loved the Rise trilogy.

We, as a species, are notorious for not being able to ascertain a metaphorical message. So, no matter what, a human element needs to be present if it wants to stay within the franchise. Keeping humans in the movie dumbstruck down the message so that everyone will understand it. I, like you, think an all ape movie could be fascinating.

"... made all the worse by doing everything he's doing in Ceasar's name." Absolutely no real world analogies i could make here. Nope. None at all.

My wife has seen every one of the new planet of the apes movies and she couldn't even remember what the last one was about, leading to low interest in this one.

Thought Kingdom was great and stands strong with the other 3 films in the series.

It seems like it took 4 films of the new franchise to finally "remake" the first movie of the original franchise.

I haven’t seen it yet but that does confirm my fear that the series will begin to focus on humans as the driving protagonists. Of the previous trilogy, I think Rise is generally regarded as the weakest because it gave so much screen time to the humans

New movies need to be about Apes enter in contact with a man that comes from the past and start a revolucion for peace between man and ape.

Saw this last night and loved it! 😀👍👍

I'm going to see it on Tuesday of kingdom of the planet of the apes in Dolby Cinema on AMC

This movie had a great premise and idea and there was just no substance here. Everyone in my theatre just kept going to the bathroom cause it was so boring

Wow. What a film. They just don’t miss with with the modern Apes films

By the end of the this new trilogy both ape n human will perish under the unified iron fists of the zebra.

Why is CGI getting worse? At no point did i think that is actually an ape. Caesar at least seemed real at times and that was ten years ago.

It’s kinda dumb to think that humans would just forget about their collective history and devolve , forgetting how to communicate, organizing etc. That is unless the writers too the William Golding view of humanity

The real question is, does an ape ever have an eagle perched on its arm, like it shows on that poster? If so, that should be an automatic See It Now!.

To me the point of the series is we are living in the Planet of the Apes now. Human and primates are part of the same family tree. We just like to view ourselves as beyond nature

I think that if they make the humans win, I will never watch the movies.

Saw and early screening, and I'd pretty much agree with Dan. It's a really good, thought-provoking, heartfelt movie that lands just a tad shy of great. Man, humans really do make everything worse.

As a huge fan of the Maze Runner movie trilogy (only the movies, the books are garbage), I really want Wes Ball to do well

My review of the movie was. It's Very Good. Proximus was Excellent!

Will we find out that noa/ Caesar are distant related in future sequels because he lookalike Caesar and does noa have Caesar birthmark?

Sad news😢, I just watched the movie yesterday and it was not good. The movies was so slow and the plot of this movie made no sense ,and the apes barely any screen time and the the villain was barely in the movie. 4/10😠not worth the wait

Saw both Fall Guy and Kingdom, Fall Guy was better than advertised, sucks it's going to fail. But I 100% agree that the Apes need a full movie where the humans truly are just out there but not any real focus in the story.

It is not reboot.

I'm with you, Dan -- the human element of doesn't work near as well as it should, to the degree that it does pull down the movie's overall quality. (despite this, I still really liked it, and plan on seeing it again.) no more humans!

Great review

I gave this film a marginal thumbs down. I agree I like the direction of generations removed from Ceasar’s time, and different views of his teachings. But there was too much generic plotting for me. I enjoyed The Fall Guy much more, and I liked the first two reboots. I hated the third War one just like I hated the third Hobbit movie, both with way too much fighting and no plot.

This film is the product of Disney purchase of 20th century Fox. This film is the platform for gaming products and other merchandising. That's why the story is basically incoherent and doesn't follow the superb writing of the rebooted trilogy. Typical Disney mess.

good video thanks

I will wait for it to come to Disney plus

I enjoyed this film, it was a good addition to the franchise

I disagree with the been there, done that with the humans. The point of the original 68 POTA, its sequels, the reboot trilogy is social political commentary that man ruined man - we are our own worst enemy. In the reboot trilogy, yes we saw humans do this but they’re not done. It’s human nature to defiantly continue the same kind of decision-making to undo the thing such a thing causes. For me, that is why Mae’s scene with holding the gun behind her back was so strong. We still need to see the progression of man get to the culmination of the nuclear option and I feel that it would be a pretty bold move to make one of the next POTA films actually dominantly human-centric as a narrative as the apes continue progressing on their own tangentially related and observing them fight amongst themselves resulting in the mutant third “race.” To your point, I agree that we need the ape-centric films as well that establishes ape law, ape civilization and The Lawgiver legend.