Director: Wes Ball

Stars: Owen Teague, Freya Allan, Peter Macon, Kevin Durand, Neil Sandlands

The latest instalment in the Apes franchise (dread word) from the director of the ‘Maze Runner’ series is, reportedly, the first part of a trilogy, and it feels very much like a part rather than a satisfactory whole.

It’s ‘many generations’ since chimpanzee Caesar (glimpsed in a prologue) led the apes to freedom against oppressive humans. Chimpanzee Noa (Teague) is the sensitive son of Koro (Sandilands) the chief of the Eagle Clan, a community of benign chimpanzees who live in the forest.

One day out poaching eagle eggs to hatch and rear, he and his friends wander close to a forbidden area and glimpse a figure, possibly an ‘echo’, one of the few remaining humans.

Later, Noa’s village is attacked a malevolent band of extremist gorillas serving under the warlike General Proximus (Macon). His family are taken to Proximus’s fortress, so Noa sets off to find them. Along the way he meets the intelligent, eccentric orangutang Raka (Macon), a follower of the teachings of Caesar, and the intelligent human Nova (‘The Witcher’s Allan). Cue various nods to the earlier pictures as they make their way, including snatches of Jerry Goldsmith’s eerily unsettling score to the 1968 original.

The special effects, particularly the motion capture work and rendering of Noa and Proxima’s respective homes, are impressive, and the simian characters are fairly well drawn and delineated, but the picture suffers from leaden pacing and halting dialogue. There’s also a sense of narrative treading of water over an extended two-and-a-half hour running time and a lack of purpose in the ape-on-ape politicking. The rich pulpy allegorical power of the originals feels a long way away.

Still, the climax is muscular and exciting enough, while pointing to an intriguing new direction for the series.

‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ is out now.

David Willoughby