With “Kingdom,” the most recent installment in the “Planet of the Apes” series, the franchise looks forward

Tenth in the ‘Planet of the Apes’ franchise, ‘Kingdom’ is an action-adventure game that carries over the plot from the reboot trilogy. ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ debuted in 2011, ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ followed in 2014, and ‘War for the Planet of the Apes’ came to an end in 2017.

Ball, who gained recognition for his work on the “Maze Runner” series, discussed the difficulty of taking on such important roles on Thursday at the London premiere of the new movie.

“We really had to decide if we had something good here,” he said. And I believe that we do. We are a little more than simply a component four; we have a purpose for being. We make an effort to pay tribute to the 1968 film as well as the preceding trilogy.”

The events seen in “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” occur several generations after those in the 2017 film. The protagonist of the tale is Noa, a young, brave ape who, in spite of his innocence, sets out on a mission to save his family when their tranquil society of eagle-raisers is assaulted. Noa meets Nova/Mae, the first human he meets on his voyage, and an old orangutan who teach him hard truths about the past. These disclosures have profound consequences for the planet’s future as well as for his own.

This time, the characters are distinct and younger. There’s almost like a sense of youth. It’s more of an adventure, really. It’s a road movie in which we kind of drive through the wreckage of our planet, a landscape that is gradually fading,” Ball said.

‘Kingdom’, like the other movies, uses motion-capture technology to animate the non-human characters. The performers committed six weeks to “ape school,” where they studied movement under the guidance of project supervisor and former Cirque du Soleil performer Alain Gauthier.

“I’m very proud to, in a tiny way, be associated with its journey and sort of passing on the baton to the next generation and watching them create such an incredible movie,” Serkis, who is sixty years old, remarked.
‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ opens for general distribution on May 8.