When I found out about this movie, I was quite excited and was eager to see it. Since my wife and I already got other plans during the mid week holiday, we decided to watch it during the weekend, few days after its release in Indonesian theater. As usual, we went to our favorite cinema that had plenty of favorite seats. All right then, I will dive into the movie now.

Brief Story Line

Many years after the events of War for the Planet of the Apes, the apes have became more intelligent and formed different clans & living in various locations, but the humans were becoming like wild animals. A young chimpanzee named Noa (Owen Teague - I See You, The Stand mini series etc) was living peacefully with his family in the Eagle clan. While on a personal mission, Noa unexpectedly encountered a group of vicious and violent apes, later on revealed to be serving their king called Proximus (Kevin Durand - Abigail, Swamp Thing TV series etc).

As Noa embarked on his personal journey, he met and befriended a wise Orangutan named Raka (Peter Macon - The Orville TV series etc) and later a female human whom they called Nova (Freya Allan - The Witcher TV series, Gunpowder Milkshake etc). Turned out Proximus' apes were actually trying to capture Nova and Noa would soon be involved in a much bigger problem that affected the livelihood of his loved ones.

So what would happen to Noa and why was Nova being pursued? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

To be honest, although I was excited in seeing this movie, I had a bit of doubt if they should make another Planet of the Apes film, especially after a perfect ending to my opinion on the previous Caesar trilogy. However, after seeing this movie, I thought this was actually very good and their decision could be justified as the film had some great qualities that satisfied my wife and me.

First the characters in here were very interesting. From the young & smart Noa, the ruthless king Proximus, the mysterious Nova, and our personal favorite Raka who provided lighter moment and one hilarious scene in the middle that made us laugh out loud. Even the additional support characters left good impression to us as well, such as Noa's childhood best friends Anaya (Travis Jeffery) & Soona (Lydia Peckham) and Noa's mother (Sara Wiseman - A Place to Call Home TV series etc) & father (Neil Sandilands - Sweet Tooth TV series etc). There was also the appearance of William H. Macy (Ricky Stanicky Wild Hogs etc) as a pretty important character Trevathan. 

Second obviously was the special effects. Once again the visual effects was supervised by Erik Winquist who was also the supervisor of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (receiving Academy Awards nomination in the process) and other films like King Kong 2005 version. The apes effects were created by WETA Digital who also did for previous three movies. From what I read, they used the same technology like in Avatar movies when doing the action sequence. No wonder they looked really fantastic. All these were supported by awesome sound effects that sounded very nice with the system in our studio.

Third was the story. I found it to be very engaging and the development of Noa from a young regular chimpanzee to become who he was in the end was just wonderful. It was really enjoyable watching his story for more than 2 hours as we really like his character and the story telling was amazing too with some intense moments, emotional situation and suspenseful scenes. All of these made for a very interesting story. Too bad it's missing a brief scene that my wife and I were really hoping to be shown to make it have a more powerful impact. In general, I thought the director Wes Ball who had directed The Maze Runner trilogy did a fabulous job here. It was also written by Josh Friedman whose credit included Avatar: The Way of Water, Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds and few others. Before I forgot, the movie did not have any mid or post end credit scene (except for a very brief something if you waited till the very end). 

And finally the action. It was fantastic and were quite frequently shown. Which made it truly satisfying for us. Overall, we felt this to be an entertaining movie. I was delighted that it did not let me down and Planet of the Apes can continue its story in a new direction. Though it might not be as great as Caesar, but Noa certainly has to potential to be the next wonderful character in this franchise. I understand this was set to be the start of a new trilogy. Let's see if it's successful enough to warrant for future installments. But I personally thought even if they do not continue, the ending was OK enough for me. So if you like previous Apes movies, I think you would enjoy this like we did too.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars