Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Twentieth Century Fox | Release Date: May 10, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
66
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 57 Critic Reviews
Positive:
36
Mixed:
19
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Screen DailyTim GriersonMay 8, 2024
This ripping action-adventure features stellar effects and a superb lead performance from Owen Teague as a timid simian who must rescue his clan from the clutches of a warlike tribe. Read full review
88
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiMay 9, 2024
Directed with visual splendor by Wes Ball, the meaty film’s combo of flawless zoological effects (unlike this year’s inferior primate picture “Godzilla x Kong”), superbly crafted characters and a timeless story of emerging civilization and the fight for survival is remarkably riveting for what sets the groundwork of a whole new trilogy. Read full review
88
The Associated PressMark KennedyMay 8, 2024
Starting with the potentially crippling proposition of a key death, this franchise has somehow found new vibrancy. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comTomris LafflyMay 8, 2024
To be clear, “Kingdom” doesn’t have the answers. But you can bet your bottom dollar that this rare, deeply cinematic Hollywood franchise won’t stop digging until we get a little closer to knowing. Read full review
83
The PlaylistSimon ThompsonMay 9, 2024
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes works as a movie in its own right and as a reset on the rebooted franchise. It seamlessly sets up a sequel or sequels that you are left wanting to see. See this in theaters, and we might just get them. Read full review
80
We Got This CoveredCharlotte SimmonsMay 11, 2024
While the final result is a film that’s a bit rougher around the edges than it needed to be, Kingdom quite confidently seals the deal through the animus of Noa; a fantastic protagonist brought to life by the young Owen Teague, whose strikingly intelligent motion-capture performance suggests a wisdom for the craft far beyond his years. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeMay 11, 2024
This is a top-quality summer blockbuster, bringing fresh blood and new ideas into the series while staying recognisably within the worlds so meticulously created in the previous three movies. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithMay 9, 2024
The second half, in particular, exemplifies science fiction at its best: thoughtful, exciting, provocative and pointed. It’s fantasy wrapped around ideological substance, making “Kingdom” the best of the franchise films to make it to theaters so far this year. Read full review
80
Vanity FairRichard LawsonMay 9, 2024
Directed by Wes Ball, Kingdom doesn’t reach the rattling grandeur of Dawn. But it's another worthy installment in a series that is pretty much unparalleled in contemporary times. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshMay 9, 2024
There is beauty among the terror and an element of anxious unpredictability thrashing our characters like the waves that crash against the cliffs. But the deft spectacle would be nothing without the characters and performances. Read full review
80
IGNEric GoldmanMay 8, 2024
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes It’s not as emotionally complex as Dawn of the Planet of the Apes or War for the Planet of the Apes, and isn’t attempting to punch you in the gut like those films do. But as this series enters its post-Caesar, Disney-owned era, Planet of the Apes is still on remarkably solid footing. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 8, 2024
Sincerity and conviction are now rare qualities in the blockbuster field, but this is a film that puts its monkey where its mouth is. Read full review
80
SlashfilmWitney SeiboldMay 8, 2024
The film may end on a bleak note, but there's some levity mixed into the very batter. Read full review
80
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonMay 8, 2024
It probes how the act of co-opting idealisms and converting them to dogmas has occurred many times over. What’s more, it points directly at the immense danger of romanticizing the past, imagining that if we could only reclaim and reframe and resurrect history, our present problems would be solved. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMay 8, 2024
Josh Friedman’s smart screenplay takes its cue from its recent predecessors in reflecting the politics of its time. But the movie works equally well as pure popcorn entertainment, packing its two-and-a-half-hour running time with nail-biting thrills but also allowing sufficient breathing space to build depth in the characters and story. Read full review
80
Screen RantGraeme GuttmannMay 8, 2024
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a rousing action-adventure in the ruins of the human world – traces of the past remain but this is Noa's story. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerMay 9, 2024
Noa may not be Caesar's heir as leader of the apes, but he definitely walks in his footsteps as a worthy protagonist in the latest iteration of this ever-intriguing sci-fi classic. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMay 11, 2024
The battles and a climactic action sequence are well filmed but Kingdom isn’t trying to outdo the other summer films when it comes to edge-of-the-seat viewing. In a strange way, I find that refreshing. Read full review
75
ObserverDylan RothMay 10, 2024
Kingdom provides a rock-solid foundation for a new series of Apes films, leaving the titular planet with its most interesting status quo to date. Read full review
75
Washington PostTy BurrMay 9, 2024
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a sturdy new entry in the revived Planet of the Apes franchise, itself one of the more successful second go-rounds, commercially and artistically, of Hollywood’s modern corporate era. Yet the movie, like its three predecessors, is a fascinating case of content following form. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyDevan CogganMay 9, 2024
In a summer movie landscape littered with cynical reboots and quippy superhero sequels, there’s something refreshing about Kingdom’s earnestness, following Noa on a true hero’s journey. Caesar may be gone, but Noa is a more than worthy successor. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMay 9, 2024
Noa is a genuinely touching creation, no little thanks to the expressive pain and fear and pathos finessed, artfully, by Teague in the motion capture stage. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMay 9, 2024
There are times when “Kingdom” is thuddingly heavy-handed with its particular brand of messaging, and the dialogue is cornier than a 1950s action epic, but there’s always another exhilarating action sequence around the corner, and the visuals are never less than stunning. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubJarrod JonesMay 9, 2024
It’s too agreeable, too dutiful to building a new series, and too reluctant to disrupt this new status quo even as it detonates its many explosive setpieces. Read full review
75
CNNBrian LowryMay 9, 2024
This latest addition surpasses expectations, honoring the source while building a muscular and even thoughtful adventure around a very ape-centric concept. Read full review
75
USA TodayBrian TruittMay 8, 2024
“Kingdom” aims to bring big ideas into a sprawling blockbuster atmosphere, though that gambit winds up weighed down by its own ambitions. Read full review
75
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMay 8, 2024
Wes Ball’s lush and nuanced Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes might lack the epic sweep or revolutionary fervor of the recent Matt Reeves movies that salvaged this series from the stink that had been on it since 2001, but this well-honed adventure still manages to build on the best of their legacy, if largely because of its keen focus on the hard-fought lessons that have been forgotten from it. Read full review
70
LooperDominic GriffinMay 19, 2024
The craft is there. The new characters are solid enough. Visually it's a real treat to behold. But 145 minutes is too long to spend retreading the recent past. Read full review
70
ColliderRoss BonaimeMay 8, 2024
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes explores the past while creating a new future, starting this fresh angle on the series to a rocky, but promising start. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen GleibermanMay 8, 2024
Though the movie is too long, I was more gratified than not to sink into its relatively old-fashioned dramatic restraint. Read full review
70
Paste MagazineTrace SauveurMay 8, 2024
After 55 years of different directions, this is far from the most exciting Planet of the Apes has been, but it’s also far from the worst, and I’m open to seeing wherever this leads. Read full review
67
Original-CinJim SlotekMay 8, 2024
In one way or another, every Planet of the Apes movie except the first has been a part of a longer narrative towards how this planet went ape. And for much of the screen-time, it does look like Kingdom is moving us there. Read full review
67
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzMay 8, 2024
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a fun enough distraction. Read full review
65
Film ThreatAlan NgMay 9, 2024
Storywise, I’m good with the first two acts. It’s a new chapter in the series, and things have changed in the story. The world is evolving along with its primate inhabitants. Read full review
65
The Daily BeastNick SchagerMay 9, 2024
Too often rehashing its myriad predecessors’ ideas, conflicts, and images, it’s a competent if unexceptional blockbuster game of monkey see, monkey do. Read full review
63
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenMay 10, 2024
Ball takes his time presenting Noa’s world in detail. Too much time, frankly. There is no real sense of urgency here. Everything is carefully worked out. The visuals are handsome but unremarkable. Consequently, the picture feels dutiful and oddly bloodless. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriMay 11, 2024
The Planet of the Apes movies were built on rage and shame about the world as it exists. And whatever its many flaws, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes gets that largely right. Read full review
60
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyMay 11, 2024
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a patchwork quilt of familiar notions. Read full review
60
NMENick LevineMay 9, 2024
The climactic setpiece isn’t quite an action spectacular, but it does feel tense and narratively satisfying. Read full review
60
SlateDana StevensMay 9, 2024
Despite its impressive attention to craft—including exquisite motion-capture work by the groundbreaking digital-design studio WETA—Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes never fully establishes its reason for being. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMay 8, 2024
More brains and less brawn probably isn’t a prescription for box-office success for a movie like this. But it’s a movie I’d rather see. Read full review
60
EmpireHelen O'HaraMay 8, 2024
It's less action-heavy than the last trilogy and inevitably more ape-centric, but this is a promisingly chewy start for the latest series of simian thrillers. These apes are still strong. Read full review
60
Time OutDan JolinMay 8, 2024
It also benefits from some engaging supporting characters. Read full review
60
Total FilmNeil SmithMay 8, 2024
Entertaining enough but inessential, Kingdom offers spectacle and thrills but lacks the ambition, smarts, and gravity of its immediate predecessors. Read full review
60
ScreenCrushMatt SingerMay 8, 2024
There are some scenes here as lively and as thoughtful as any in this great series’ history. But then that final sequence reminds viewers that this is a franchise still thinking about the way things were, and not with the way things are — or could be in the future. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 8, 2024
The film becomes rather jumbled and preposterous by the very end, but not before some perfectly good action sequences, and the CGI ape faces are very good. This franchise has held up an awful lot better than others; now it should evolve to something new. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeMay 8, 2024
The film is good enough to deserve the sequels towards which it there gestures. Read full review
58
The Film StageAlistair RyderMay 8, 2024
It’s the ideal third act for a Planet of the Apes movie––whether you want to sit through an extensive, near-90 minute journey that represents everything wrong with dystopian world-building in contemporary blockbusters to get there, however, is up to you. Read full review
55
The Film VerdictAlonso DuraldeMay 8, 2024
For all its craft, though, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes never finds the “aha” moment that justifies returning to the well for reasons more pressing than branding and global markets. Read full review
50
ABC NewsPeter TraversMay 10, 2024
No. 10 in the series proves there’s still life, artful cosplay and action monkeyshines in the ape-verse that began in 1968, but a worrying case of franchise fatigue is sneaking in. Whatever happened to quitting while you're ahead? Read full review
50
Little White LiesAdam WoodwardMay 9, 2024
Kingdom certainly has its moments, but the rougher, darker edges of predecessors Dawn, Rise and War have been smoothed out, leaving us with an over-long, relatively low-stakes instalment sorely lacking in originality. Read full review
50
PolygonJoshua RiveraMay 8, 2024
Kingdom merely seems like an act of franchise maintenance, a reversal for a series of unusually thoughtful blockbusters. Every frame is a technical marvel. And every minute of it is probably better spent watching something else. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineJake ColeMay 8, 2024
By the time the demands of big-budget spectacle take over in the final act, a film that initially stands out from the pack in imagining a different perspective of the world ends up looking all too disappointingly like everything else in the current mega-budget cinema landscape. Read full review
40
Rolling StoneDavid FearMay 8, 2024
There will be fresh heroes to cheer, fresh villains to hiss at, fresh metaphors about power and corruption and history repeating itself to scratch your chin over. Yet a curious sense of staleness starts to set in even before the first act of director Wes Ball’s entry pits ape against ape. Read full review
40
BBCCaryn JamesMay 8, 2024
Behind the impressive CGI, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the definition of generic, all two hours and 25 minutes of it. The ending teases a sequel that offers a more intriguing conflict ahead, but that doesn't help us now. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreMay 9, 2024
It’s lovely to look at. But that leaden, endless time-suck of an opening act is a fatal flaw that “Kingdom” never overcomes. And two and a half hours is a helluva long time to take to get to a point, not that they ever do. Read full review
30
TheWrapMatt GoldbergMay 8, 2024
Trying to overwhelm the audience with spectacle, as “Kingdom” attempts to do, is a sorry substitute for the detailed characters and thoughtful conflicts that populate prior entries in the series. Read full review
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