Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

I'm bummed I didn't love this. The visuals are as good as ever, both from cinematography to cgi it just looks fantastic. Unfortunately it falls flat mostly everywhere else. A classic hero's journey through the remnants of this universe's apocalyptic landscape is a great idea, but the journey itself is just devoid of sauce. It's bland, and often just feels like we're watching scenes checking off boxes from an adventure story. Like a movie coming out of an assembly line. Character motivations are unclear, the mc's emotional arc is unclear, and overall every idea just doesn't feel fleshed out, even when they almost have a good one. How Caesar's legacy is handled in this movie is almost interesting, but again it is not fleshed out. I will say the movie starts strong, I didn't really start turning on it til I realized how bored I was about halfway through. And that's before the third act really just frustrated me. Almost feels like we're seeing the first draft of a potentially great movie. Still excited to see where the franchise goes, but this new set of movies is off to a rough start for me.