It’s been a bunch of generations since Caesar, the first leader of the smart apes, died. Now, apes run the world but haven’t developed anything too fancy as a society. Noa lives in this small village where they use overgrown power towers to hang out. Her clan’s thing is training eagles by snatching eggs and teaching them to respond to ape songs.

But then, everything goes sideways when their community gets attacked by dudes from Proximus Caesar’s kingdom. He’s got this whole military dictatorship going on because some captured human gave him the means with electrical weapons. They’re after a young woman who ends up escaping with help from Noa and Raka, a wise old orangutan who keeps Caesar’s wisdom alive.

This part of the story sorta suggests humans aren’t out of the picture just yet. Sure, there’s that virus making most humans dumber (they’re called Echos now), but not all are affected. Proximus wants to use tricky knowledge from these few unaffected folks to up his weapon game while also crushing them just in case they try taking over again. And honestly, it doesn’t seem like he’s wrong in fearing them: humans may be sneaky but considering their tough situation, you kind of get why.

Anyway, it’s setting up some intriguing questions for future movies about whether these humans might come back strong or if they’re just making trouble for our ape friends.
Alright, so imagine a movie where we’re starting another epic trilogy just like “Planet of the Apes.” But here’s the thing: it takes its sweet time getting there—like two hours and twenty minutes. And in that stretch, you get loads of clichés, way-too-obvious symbolism, and awkward dialog.

The movie’s main hang-up? The pacing. Just like with Matt Reeves’ movies (which some folks think are pretty overrated), things slow down when our ape friends start talking. Their speech is super slow and awkward—you know, dropping words all over the place like pronouns and little helper verbs. It feels like they’re taking big pauses between each word as if every sentence is a chore. Back in those other movies, at least humans were chilling around to speed things up with their quicker chatter.

Here though? It’s almost all monkey talk—with these somewhat advanced but definitely still language-struggling apes figuring out what to say. And some plot points could be seen coming from a mile away! Take the eagle falconry side story, for instance. Those eagles aren’t just there by chance; oh no! They’re totally meant to represent American spirit heroes or something. For ages in the movie, it seems pointless until bam—it ties up everything neatly at the end kind of like Chekhov’s gun: Spot them early on, and you know someone’s getting clawed before it’s over.

Then there’s Raka the orangutan who’s probably the best talker in this bunch but ends caught in this controversy called “bury your gay.” Basically, characters revealing they’re gay tend not to have happy endings—and let’s just say Raka doesn’t dodge that bullet either!
So, in this movie, there’s a character named Nova who’s chased by some monkeys. She’s portrayed by Freya Allen, who you’ll probably know as Ciri from “The Witcher.” Nova is quite the mystery—she’s torn between loyalty to different groups and isn’t afraid to make bold moves that really catch Noa off guard.

Now, Noa isn’t exactly like Caesar in “Planet of the Apes.” He’s more of a farm boy, kind of like Luke Skywalker, getting tangled up in a big conflict with this harsh but kind of smart empire led by a wise mentor. His journey is pretty much your classic hero’s tale and doesn’t throw any curveballs at you.

Wes Ball does give us some cool scenes though. The cities overgrown with plants look fascinating. But sometimes the story doesn’t make complete sense—with typical shortcuts you see in adventure movies and maybe too much drama. Like, there’s this water rising endlessly at the end when it shouldn’t be—it’s super exaggerated compared to reality. It feels like Ball tried to match the epic ending of “Avatar: The Way of Water,” but let’s be real—it doesn’t quite measure up to James Cameron’s work.

Despite its flaws, there’s still something intriguing about what comes next for this series. It’ll be interesting to see how they keep reinventing things down the line once they get past these initial bumps.
“Ordo” tells the story of a guy named Ordo who gets hit with some pretty shocking news. One day, out of the blue, he discovers that his former step-sister, who’s now a famous actress, has undergone a dramatic change—like completely altered her look! It’s like meeting a total stranger with a familiar name. As Ordo tries to wrap his head around it and figure out how he feels about this whole new situation, we’re taken on this journey alongside him, exploring themes of identity and unexpected surprises life throws our way. It’s an intriguing look at how people change over time and how we deal with those changes.