'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' takes an evolutionary leap

A thrilling new trilogy kicks off with the primates very much in charge

(Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox)

I’m always going to root for my home species, but I’m not sure we need humans anymore in the “Planet of the Apes” movies. In the latest, Wes Ball’s “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” at least a half-hour goes by before we get a glimpse of a fleshy non-simian face.

And we don’t miss it. The already-impressive CGI technology of the last “Apes” movie, 2017’s “War for the Planet of the Apes,” has progressed so far in the last few years that the audience completely believes in the reality of these primate characters. It seems like the closer the camera gets, the more convincing the apes become, down to every little CGI hair on their heads and, more significantly, the emotion in their eyes, courtesy of a talented team of motion-capture actors.

These apes can carry the movie on their own hairy shoulders. Like its recent predecessors, “Kingdom” is a thoughtful, thrilling and visually stunning epic that mixes action, emotion and social commentary. They don’t make them like this anymore – at least not with humans.

“Kingdom,” intended to kick off a new trilogy, is set “many generations later” than the last movie, in a world where the apes are very much in charge. A manmade virus wiped out most of the human population, and the few survivors, nicknamed Echoes by the apes, were left mute and with diminished intelligence. In essence, human and ape have swapped places on the evolutionary chart.

Most apes live in peaceful clans, thriving in a lush wilderness that has almost reclaimed the ruins of human civilization. Noa (a terrific Owen Teague) is a young chimp who is the son of the leader of one of those clans, where eagles are raised to be hunters. There’s a stunning opening sequence where he leaps from one overgrown building to the next with his friends Anaya (Travis Jeffery) and Soona (Lydia Peckham), hunting for eagle eggs that will be part of their rite of passage.

But a raiding party of apes wielding electric cattle prods storms into the village, killing Noa’s father and kidnapping most of the tribe. Noa is the sole survivor, and vows to track down and rescue his people.

The first half of “Kingdom,” written by Josh Friedman, plays like a simian “Searchers,” as Noa rides on horseback across a vast landscape that we gradually realize used to be Los Angeles. (Stops at the former LAX and Griffith Park Observatory give a little thrill of recognition.)

Along the way, Noa picks up a companion in an old orangutan, Raka (Peter Macon), who follows in the peaceful teachings of Caesar, the simian leader from the last trilogy. Somehow Macon conveys gravitas and wry humor even as Raka walks with the arm-swinging motions that orangutans do. They also pick up a human, Mae (Freya Allan), who at first seems to be nothing more than a mute scavenger. But Mae has her secrets.

Noa is eventually seized by the same apes who kidnapped his clan, and taken to the seaside kingdom of Proximus (Kevin Durand). Proximus is a swaggering despot who is conscripting apes into his empire, twisting Caesar’s words to justify his imperial desires. In a funny twist, Proximus has a human familiar, Trevathan (William H. Macy), who he keeps as sort of a palace pet.

“Kingdom” just kept taking me new places and showing me new things in this strange and yet strangely familiar world. There’s such care and attention to detail in the world-building here, not just in the visual touches or the alternate histories but in the emotions of the characters.

Ball is not afraid to slow down the movie and focus on the internal struggles of its characters, particularly Noa as he learns much more than he bargained for about the wider world. And the film’s message about the dangers of trying to recapture the supposed lost glories of an imagined past are particularly resonant to contemporary audiences.

The ending sets up a very different direction for the franchise, in particular the fraught relationship between apes and humans in this new world. Mae is, in some ways, presented as much a hero for her own species as Noa is for his, which portends some inevitable conflicts down the line.

Sorry, humans. I’m Team Ape all the way.

“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” opens everywhere on Friday.