The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes)

Which is a shame, because it (re)started in 2011 anyway Planet of the Apes– series is perhaps the most successful and coherent sci-fi saga of the 2010s, each iteration of which stands on its own and as part of a larger story, and they were also able to reinterpret and add new meanings to the monkey universe. If you are interested in a brief overview of the previous parts and adaptations, you can find information from this article, but I would like to point out right away that Planet of the Apes: The Empire knowledge of the history of the previous parts is not a prerequisite for its enjoyable consumption.

The opening credits perfectly summarize what has happened so far in just a few sentences: humanity accidentally created a virus that made monkeys smarter, but it had the opposite effect on humans, rendering even those who did not die immediately from complications of the virus unable to speak (Rebellion). The monkeys, who became the new dominant species, then fought their own civil wars (Revolution), and they successfully faced the last striking force of humanity (War). After that, the protagonist of the trilogy, Cézár (Andy Serkis), the Moses of the monkeys, led his people to the promised land, where they will live in peace for generations.

And so it happened, The Empirenot only does the series replace the familiar human characters (as happened in all the films of the Matt Reeves trilogy), but Cézár himself only exists in legends: we are generations after the ape exodus, the apes live their daily lives in different tribes . Noa (Owen Teague) and her friends Soona (Lydia Peckham) and Anaya (Travis Jeffery) are members of a community of chimpanzees who raise eagles, and one of the important rites of youth growing up is to obtain eagle eggs from tower houses left behind by former human civilization and reclaimed by nature. from eagles nesting on top. Their days are made miserable only by the thieving of the Echoes (lower-order people) who sometimes visit their territory, otherwise there is a lot of harmony and peace. However, this idyllic state cannot last forever, the ape soldiers of a new Caesar, Proximus (Kevin Durand), capture Noa’s entire tribe, and the young chimpanzee who was accidentally left behind sets out to fulfill the promise he made to his father and free his tribe from the wrath of the evil apes. Along the way, he meets a wise orangutan, Raka (Peter Macon) and an “Echo”, Mae (Freya Allan), learns more about the past of apes and humanity, and even has a vision of their future.

Come on The Empire takes place in the same universe as Reeves’ monkey trilogy, the desire to start again is palpable War after, we can practically witness a generational change, both in terms of the main characters and the main creators. Reeves is replaced in the director’s chair by the young Wes Ball, who so far has probably only directed another sci-fi trilogy, Maze-movies (Maze Runner) became known as its director. In the case of the script, however, there is continuity, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, who wrote the stories of the first three parts, were joined by the busy Josh Friedman (among others, the most recent Avatart is TerminatorHe also wrote t, Apple’s Foundational university). And this was noticeably good for the many restarts, which go back to the characters and events of the Reeves trilogy just enough to keep alive the spirit outlined by them.

The pace of the film is not so much characterized by the rush and stacking of action scenes typical of blockbusters as it is by the well-written dialogue parts and the occasional fast-paced events, which is why the almost two and a half hour film may feel slow to many. But those who like well-constructed characters and worlds, beautifully photographed (let’s also mention the name of our cinematographer Gyula Pados, who did an excellent job), riding through atmospheric post-apocalyptic-paradise landscapes, probably won’t even be bothered by the fact that The Empire perceptibly just a lead-up – the end of the film leaves no doubt that (in case of financial success) we can count on the continuation of the story.

The Empire also cleverly evokes Cézár himself, who from the distance of centuries feels less and less like a real person to the monkeys and humans of the present, the name of the founder and the symbols he used (the compound fists, or even the Rebellionthe stylized image of the window known from , behind which Césár got to know the human world) are now symbols that have lost their original context, which Proximus, Genghis Khan, who was born in the body of an ape, preparing to subjugate and unify the tribes, can use for his own purposes, to legitimize his reign of terror. However, the real Caesarian spirit lives on in Raka, who tries to keep alive the memory of the former world with the help of old books and pictures, so that the emerging ape civilization does not make the same mistakes as its human predecessor. Meanwhile, people mourning the loss of their former glory are also organizing, they also have a completely different attitude to the events of the past and have different goals for the future.

Although Wes Ball’s film does not reach the level of the predecessor trilogy in all respects (although Teague and his colleagues do a completely fair job, Serkis’s charismatic performance is strongly lacking behind the monkey face, and the characters we have met so far, with Allan at the head, are also somewhat schematic and empty, and we don’t get such brilliant directorial solutions as e.g Revolution tankos scene), but it is definitely welcome that the monkey universe continues with a proper fourth part. There is still plenty of potential in the world depicted by the film’s closing sequences, so there is even hope that this positive trend will continue.