My 'Kingdom' for an Ape
Apes. Together. Artistically. Strong.
Few franchises have had more staying power over the past few decades than Planet of the Apes. There’s something about the core idea — which asks asks us to consider the nature of humanity and what exactly separates us from the animals — that resonates with people, no matter which generation they’re from. Plus, it’s just really cool to see apes on screen that are able to act and talk like humans.
So I was excited to check out Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which opens in theaters this weekend. Taking place decades after the ending of Matt Reeves’ War for the Planet of the Apes, Kingdom introduces us to a new cast, including a trio of apes led by Noa (Owen Teague) who ends up on a journey with a mysterious human named Mae (Freya Allen). Mae is sought by an ape leader named Proximus (a terrifying Kevin Durand) for reasons that become clear as the film goes on.
While Kingdom is a sequel, I was impressed by how many creative chances it took. Regardless of the film’s problems, it tries to get us to care about characters we’ve never met before, to make us think a little bit, and to forge a new direction for the franchise. I would say it’s moderately successful on all counts.
All the characters, apes and human, are charismatic and fun to watch, even if the character development feels a touch perfunctory. And while there isn’t anything super revelatory about Kingdom’s themes, it does get us to consider how societies might evolve and be shaped by animals and humans in a post-apocalypse. How would societies rebuild themselves? What types of creatures would take control? And how would they effectively harness power over others? These are things that are always fun to consider in these films and this one is no different.
What isn’t perfunctory are the action scenes. Overall, I had a blast watching Kingdom. Each set piece feels loaded with spectacular, dazzling imagery, as well as solid emotional stakes. We already know these filmmakers have the technology to make photorealistic apes, but seeing them interact with each other and with varied environments was genuinely thrilling.
What isn’t great about Kingdom is how it spends a significant amount of its time teeing up the possibility of future films that may never get made. There are certainly intriguing directions for the series to go in, but the way they are presented in this film make some of its big ideas feel incomplete. We don’t really know what the film is trying to say about [REDACTED] because we’re only seeing part of the story, and we won’t know until the next movie comes out.
Despite that, it’s refreshing to see a summer blockbuster that has a head and a heart. Kingdom isn’t the best Apes movie in recent memory, but it’s one that will reward people who wish to enter this world again and let their mind run with the possibilities.
The Fall of ‘The Fall Guy’
The somewhat disappointing debut of The Fall Guy has prompted a lots of hand-wringing from film commentators and critics. The movie was projected to open at $30MM+ but instead opened at a little bit under $28MM. While that may not sound too bad, I think a lot of people were hoping The Fall Guy’s box office would kick off the summer movie season with an exclamation point. Between COVID and the strikes, Hollywood has been through years of turmoil and it needs as many wins as it can get.
[A huge factor in all this is The Fall Guy’s budget of $130MM. If the movie had been made for half that amount, it might’ve been considered more financially successful. But who knows: if it had been budgeted for half that amount, it might not be as good as it is, and/or it might not have been greenlit in the first place? Hindisight is 20/20]
Many folks saw The Fall Guy as a wistful symbol of a bygone era. Here’s a movie with two incredibly charismatic and attractive leads (each of which was just nominated for for an Oscar in a massively successful film!) that also puts good old fashioned stunts front and center. Sure, there are visual effects used, but people still risked life and limb to bring you these images. And yes, it’s based off an extremely old TV show but for most people going to theaters today it’s basically an original IP (“new to them” as my colleague
might call it). If a movie like The Fall Guy can’t succeed, what are we even doing here? It even prompted Matt Singer to ask: What the hell do people want out of movies?There are many theories of the case: no one cares about the TV show the film was based on, Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling aren’t the kinds of movie stars that can get butts in seats, the trailer didn’t do a good job selling the story, etc.
For me, the single most salient idea is that in order for a theatrical movie to be successful these days, it needs to be an event that people must go see at the theater as soon as possible. People have been conditioned to expect things to hit streaming or VOD within weeks, so unless a movie is something that people are going to see as some kind of event (see: Gentleminions) or talk about it at the water cooler or post about on Instagram/Tiktok, there’s no need to rush out.
If true, this means any movie marketing campaign needs to reach an extremely high bar to be successful these days. It also means the types of movies that can be successful at a large scale are continuing to become frighteningly limited.
Apple Crushing The Hopes and Dreams of Creatives
Apple announced a bunch of new iPads this week. They look kind of cool! I want to try the new iPad Pro, which is apparently the thinnest device they’ve ever made.
To celebrate this launch, they also released the above ad, which shows a bunch of physical instruments of creativity (e.g. a guitar, a piano, paint bottles, etc.) getting crushed by a massive hydraulic press, leaving only an iPad Pro. It’s supposed to be a metaphor for how capable the iPad is at enabling creativity, but many people found the image of all these beautiful objects being destroyed in service of a piece of tech to be troubling. The ad has received universal negative response, with some calling it Apple’s worst ad ever.
People hated this thing so much that Apple actually issued an apology for it (a rarity). Tor Myhren, Apple’s VP of marketing, responded to the backlash in a statement to Ad Age:
Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world. Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.
For me personally, it’s difficult to get upset about any advertising a corporation puts out these days (including this one), but I was fascinated by the response to it. Creative people have seen how tech has laid waste to multiple industries. Just think about what streaming companies like Spotify and Netflix have done to music and movies. Sure they’ve minted a bunch more creatives and enabled a much wider reach for works of art, but are most of the creative people in your life living comfortably these days? With the rapid influx of AI now about to dominate the tech space, more people’s jobs will be at risk, all in the service of delivering shareholder value. Creative people are on edge and many of them no longer see the tech industry as a friendly companion helping them on their journey anymore.
Somehow, Apple’s ad tapped into all these anxieties with a vivid visual metaphor. And the fact that Apple didn’t realize they were doing it (or have the proper internal processes for realizing it) is perhaps even more troubling than the ad itself.
Other Stuff David Chen Made
On Decoding TV, Patrick Klepek and I covered the latest episode of The Sympathizer, which takes vicious aim at Apocalypse Now, as well as the first few eps of Baby Reindeer on Netflix.
[PAID] Also on Decoding TV: Patrick and I discussed that big thing that happens in last week’s episode of Sugar on Apple TV+.
On The Filmcast, we discussed The Fall Guy, a fun movie that people should go see!
[PAID] On my personal Patreon, I shared an update about my journey into the world of poker.