New adventure swings into action

INHERITING a franchise that has been enrapturing fans for more than 55 years is a daunting prospect..

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But with incredible modern animation tools at their disposal, and a new adventure to embark upon, Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes both honours and reinvents the decades-long legacy of the Planet Of The Apes series with a fresh story and cast.

Directed by Wes Ball, Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes breathes new life into this world.

Set several generations after the events of 2017’s War For The Planet Of The Apes, the sci-fi action film follows life after the reign of Caesar, played by Andy Serkis in the earlier trilogy, in a world where apes are the dominant species and humans live life in the shadows.

While the apes are living harmoniously in the oasis the chimpanzee Caesar led them to, things take a turn when the ape king Proximus Caesar, played by The Strain star Kevin Durand, arms himself with weapons created from lost human technologies and perverts Caesar’s teachings to enslave other clans.

Meanwhile, young chimpanzee hunter Noa, played by The Stand’s Owen Teague, undertakes a harrowing journey with a feral human girl named Mae, played by The Witch- er’s Freya

Allan, which will lead him to make choices that will define the future of apes and humans alike.

“We’re expanding the world… exploring all these parts of the universe that we’ve never seen before, and Wes is such a genius at doing that,” teases Teague (25).

Filmmaker Ball, who has been a fan of the Apes franchise since he was a child, explains: “The time jump is really what allowed us to open up our imaginations towards all the possibilities that we can explore here: What’s become of Caesar’s legacy, what’s been lost along the way?

“Throughout human history, we’ve had these experiences where we discover these great things, and then they’ll last for hundreds of years, and then are rediscovered again, you know? So we got to explore how apes are moving through their evolution, their march towards modernity, towards what we noted in the 1968 version of Apes.

“That was a lot of fun to imagine all that stuff, and hopefully we’ve done something that’s a new chapter in this long legacy.”

The artistry of the behind-thescenes teams who brought the apes to life on-screen has been heralded by Durand.

“(In) all of the ape characters, I really saw the human stuff laid down, and I saw all of their expressions, the idiosyncratic… that was amazing to see, how the performances came through…” says the 50-year-old actor.

“As an actor, it’s hard to separate – even though I look like Proximus, who apparently looks exactly like me! – I was still whisked away by it.”

■ Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes is out now. See our review on page 31.