It’s not hard to be aware of “Planet of the Apes”, as an IP. It’s been around for half a century, and had an ending so iconic that it bled into the rest of our collective pop culture. For those of you who haven’t seen the newest “Planet of the Apes” movies, you’d be surprised what kind of punch they pack. I binged Rise, Dawn, and War within a week on my first watch-through because of how fascinating these films are. The visuals, the commentary, the storytelling, the relationships, it all weaves into these fantastic entries in a series that shows us what we could’ve been or could become.

Kingdom follows a young ape named Noa who seems to be an average member of his community. He is part of a clan called the “Eagle Clan”, who are pretty cut off from other tribes and don’t even know who Caesar was despite his influence. Tragedy and bad luck start to hit the clan and Noa is the only one left at their camp after it’s been burnt down by a group led by “Proximus Caesar”, an ape who has perverted Caesar’s teachings. The rest of the movie follows Noa on his path to find his tribe and he meets some friends along the way, like Nova, who is a human that can talk (something apes have come to think is no longer possible) and Raka, an ape who is trying to spread the word of Caesar in the right way.

I don’t want to give too much away, because this film is absolutely worthy of your time. This franchise could’ve been dead in the water, but here we are! Halfway to 9 movies in a new franchise, telling a new side of the story of the Apes world. It feels connected yet disconnected in a way that allows so much more room for storytelling and world building. I, for one, will be in line for every other film that releases in this series because these films are just magical. You just simply can’t go wrong with movies about sentient apes.