Roulette Reviews - Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (The Weight of Legacy)

Wednesday night I saw Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes it was a 700 p.m. showing which I rushed to get to after finishing up at work inhaling my dinner and leaving the stove top on which my roommate discovered approximately 90 minutes later oops sorry about that jack won't happen again probably but enough about me let's get to what we're all here for that's right monkey when you hear the saying big shoes to fill you may not not immediately think of Planet of the Apes you may instead think of big shoes clown sized or Shack sized but if we're talking about movies with a legacy to live up to with reputations for what they represent that have been curated for years before actual release you still probably aren't thinking of Planet of the Apes what you might be thinking of when it comes to movies that have a lot of baggage are the most iconic franchises in our culture you might be thinking of Christopher Nolan's Batman films and then 2022 is the Batman you might think of Star Wars and then the sequel Trilogy you might think of Steve Rogers hanging up the vibranium Shield so that Sam Wilson can pick it up and Dawn the mantle of Captain America all of these have an elephant in the room that they try to acknowledge to varying degrees of success in one case we have failure the Star Wars sequels are films that I think are crushed and chained down by what has come before them and though they do not follow the same plot or the same characters as the original movies that Inspire them they are beholden to these characters and the stories that surrounded them all those years ago often to a fault the force of awakens is just a new hope the Last Jedi was desperate to break free of its shackles of sameness and Rise of Skywalker was pure distilled 200 proof garbage here the film suffered from the fact that they relied too much on and played too close to their predecessors for two of the three films the sequel Trilogy is simply an uncomfortable flanderization of the original trilogy if you don't know what flanderization means it's essentially just the slow creep of characters becoming their most recognizable and often times worse traits it was popularized by what happened to Ned Flanders on The Simpsons it is most evident in sitcoms when the dumb character becomes increasingly idiotic as the show continues but it can and does happen on larger scales too like with Star Wars as a whole Star Wars has mutated from an amalgamation of the stories that inspired its creators to get into the art form of film to just a self-referential or a boros that can only ever refer back to what it's already done and never truly tread new ground this is because the people that now make Star Wars only know old Star Wars which is what they base all of the new Star Wars off of but enough of this tangent that can be its own thing on to one of my other examples when it comes to dealing with Legacy Sam Wilson and the MCU are my sort of middle ground in spite of a terrible idea for Captain America 4 along with the wildely offensive and toned deaf character that is going to be in this film I would say the handling of Captain America as an idea and as a legacy that exists in our reality is pretty decent there's an entire series about Sam growing into this role about him accepting the responsibility and iconography that's been entrusted to him all the while knowing he will never be the cap that Steve Rogers was he will never be the cap that we knew but that's okay because he will come into his own version of Captain America one that consists of the best traits that Steve saw in him the traits that led to Steve handing Sam that Shield to begin with now in theory this is all well and good but quite honestly I was pretty tepid on Falcon and the Winter Soldier overall it was decent it checked all the boxes but it never really soared when it had the chance to after all the name of the game was maintaining the status quo for Marvel around this time that's how the MCU has operated and continues to operate and in this way the series and Sam Wilson as a character were kind kind of neutered and were unable to become what they had the potential to be because you know the best thing for your protagonist to do in the Thematic climax of your series is to ham and Hall and make a speech that amounts to both sides then called a day but now we shift over to my good example my example of how to handle the baggage of expectations in the Legacy the right way my example of how to consider what the audience wants and provide this but give them what your character needs to grow and what the audience itself didn't know it wanted in this example we find 2022 is the Batman the film which was not so coincidentally directed by the guy who created the recent Planet of the Apes trilogy that is giving Kingdom its Legacy and baggage to begin with wait this is a kingdom of the Planet of the Apes video uh right right we're getting there I promise my point with the Batman is that there was so much audience love and admiration for the interpretations we got in the previous decade with Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan it was a gritty semi-realistic Batman with captivating stories iconic moments and even more iconic villains I grew up on these films and wasn't sure what to expect with Reeves and paton's Batman I knew they were going darker and grittier but I was cautious because how much darker and grittier could you really get how much more realistic of a take could you give to Batman the answer I got was that we weren't necessarily just cranking up the dials we weren't just making things bigger and more dirtier or darker in the way Star Wars made its sequels bigger and more bombastic and we weren't doing it in the way that Zack Snider went darker in the dumbest sense of the phrase with his guy who looks similar to Batman but isn't Batman instead Matt Reeves took a new angle on the realism and the grime rather than the physical possibility of everything be it gadgets or combat or villains Reeves dove into the emotional and psychological realism we got a new Batman a Batman that was entirely defined by his isolation and disconnection from the people around him one who was much more bat than man cut off from the world and almost haunting to look at the film explored what it meant to be Batman in a way that was different from the Nolan Trilogy while both still were icons for Gotham at the end of the day they were ideas for Change and symbols of Hope but they became this in different ways patson was waiting in the filth working cases as a detective in a way we hadn't seen before yes this was Batman but it was an unexplored angle on him it was one that focused on his willful separation from the world he was trying to protect it focused on his mission and how that mission changed from being somewhat selfish and Reckless and born of Retribution to being more about uplifting others and being protective and trying to be a symbol of inspiration there was a clear idea to acknowledge what had come before but not use it as your entire framework and create something your own this idea both within the world of the story and within our real human world is what kingdom of the Planet of the Apes handles so so well immediately upon seeing our main character of the film Noah you know what my first thought was this dude ain't Caesar dude may be able to climb but he is not the dog that Caesar was and quite frankly I was not expecting to be thinking that thought I did not know I was down for my boy Caesar like that but apparently I am and it was a mental hurdle of mine that Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was going to have to get over and it did to the film's credit it did everyone involved in Kingdom knows exactly how well regarded the recent Trilogy was and by extension how endeared to Caesar most people became through that trilogy so the film treats him with a revery that feels genuine within the world of the movie I mean he is essentially monkey Jesus here Caesar is monkey Jesus in this movie in the same way that Luke Skywalker is space Jesus in the force awakens except in this movie it doesn't feel super annoying like it does with the force awakens why is this because there are thematic and emotional reasons for this allegory for the story the film is trying to tell as well as for the characters in it Caesar is not just a name to drop or a reference to make so that the Apes on screen can wink at the audience and remind them of how good the previous movies were no Caesar represents something in the world that forces our protagonist to change through raqqa's teachings about Caesar Noah learns what Caesar represents Noah is is exposed to Caesar's Legacy as a leader and through this Noah grows he recognizes the traits in himself that can be used to uphold the ideas and practices that Caesar represented we see this happen time and time again throughout the film Noah is definitively not Caesar and really he doesn't want to be Caesar either but he does want to live up to what Caesar stood for when he offers up the eggs to his friends when he fights back against the raiding party when he without having reason to do so shows kindness to this Echo that he just met when he immediately knows the operation proximus is running is nothing more than an illusion born of propaganda when he fights Through Blood and sweat and tears to free his clan and lead them home he did all these things he did all of these things that Caesar would have done but he didn't do them the exact way Caesar would have certainly some of these actions have Echoes of the action Caesar took in his day but it was never in a way to make Noah into a clone of a protagonist who had come before and that was the point slowly Noah came into his own as a growing ape as a character and I noticed at the end of the film this guy I really didn't care about whatsoever I was hyped to see him in a good spot I was satisfied with his story Noah was an ape I cared about and was rooting for pumping my fist a little bit in the dark of the theater whenever he had a great moment now contrast this with proximus another character who is defined by the Legacy and reputation of Caesar proximus is in many ways a flanderization of Caesar and an intentional one at that he twists and manipulates Caesar's ideals in order to serve his own selfish ends yes he seeks the welfare of Apes but at the cost lost of humans this is entirely antithetical to the Caesar we knew from the previous Trilogy yet from the passage of time and the erosion of Caesar's image and lasting impact proximus has become his standin proximus is a manifestation of Legacy turned sour he is the dark parts of what came before Twisted through convenience and self-serving motivations even Caesar's nobler traits are corrupted when used by proximus in the film Charisma and eloquence and unity all serve Sinister ends for this Distortion of what Caesar was as a leader in the world of the story this works really well there are two wouldbe leaders battling it out for their own interpretation of an icon's ideas whoever wins chooses the New Path forward for their kind it is quite literally a fight for the soul of their civilization what kind of world are they going to create and outside of the film in our real world this idea works too it works as a representation of narrative and Legacy of the franchise Caesar was and is Iconic as a character and as a story we know this and the director West ball knows this but rather than put him up on a pedestal and try to hit all the same notes that Caesar in his story did the writers use Caesar to contextualize this new story this continuation of the story of his species that Caesar set underway so long ago it's not patronizing and does so much to cement who and what Caesar was in this world it's smart it's tactful and it's a sign of good things to come for the continuation of the Apes franchise there's reverence and respect for what was but it's never a rehashing or a constant forced binding to the audience this is true in the small strokes and the broad even if you look at the musical score which is done by the entirely underrated John Pano it's the same it has hints of the atmosphere of the original Apes movies but still is very much in its own Groove shaping itself alongside Noah as the narrative unfolds it's not just a cheap retreading on the motifs and themes of the previous movies but uses them to create new sounds and stories through music so I know this has been a pretty General way of talking about the film but this is really just what stuck out to me I feel like apes is such a smartly handled franchise the baggage it does have from its Legacy never really seems to bog it down and if anything that baggage is used in clever ways to enhance the new stories we're getting the old seems to meld seamlessly with the new to create stories that are entirely captivating in their own right the cyclical nature of borrowing from the past to inspire these films we get now which are essentially prequels that set up the elements of The Originals creates this immense satisfaction and originality that is rarely the case with modern franchise films I don't know if this is the end of Noah's story specifically I don't know if the next Apes film will follow him in his clan or if the plan is for more of an anthology sort of approach but whatever it is after seeing Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes I am confident that whatever comes next will be great once again monkey I strongly recommend this one I rate it 3.5 out of five stars and honestly that might go up over time I truly have nothing to complain about here I just think this is a film that will age like wine everything about it just improves to me the more I consider it raaka espe especially despite being in rangang he was the goat a real one so go see this movie it's wonderful until next time oh last second plug I also saw the movie Tuesday this week which I saw on Friday this is a smaller film uh but it stars Julia Lise draus I really thought it was incredible see that too it comes out June 14th I believe and I promise it's worth every penny it's really amazing I might talk about it more in depth in the future as well but I just wanted to throw this in because if I could be the reason even one more person experiences this film it will have been worth it to me okay peace for real now

Channel: Roulette Films

Views: 8,476

Keywords: kingdom of the planet of the apes, planet of the apes, caesar, proximus, noa, noah, raka, explained, ending, analysis, nova, mae, may, eagle clan, review, film, movie, easter egg, hidden, john paesano, sequel, next

Id: 4dZaLJXU3Tw

Length: 12min 41sec (761 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 11 2024