Something to watch tonight: Friday 9 August

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Ball, 2024)

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the most recent release in the esteemed fran­chise has made it to stream­ing so you can now binge all 10 at home.

This one kicks off a new story arc so does more scene-setting than usu­al. And leaves behind some­thing of a cliffhanger.

Here’s my ori­gin­al review from 10 May.

What I enjoyed most about this film was genu­inely not know­ing what was around each corner, so I won’t talk any more about the plot. The char­ac­ters are all strong and dis­tinct – from each oth­er but also from char­ac­ters we have seen pre­vi­ously. It feels fresh, even if at this point in the nar­rat­ive cycle it doesn’t yet have the alleg­or­ic­al or emo­tion­al heft that the earli­er films managed.

Talking of earli­er films, the call­backs to them are judi­cious and satisfying.

On the bus to the cinema yes­ter­day, I found myself think­ing how refresh­ing it was that the talk­ing apes in these films don’t curse. Well, we can cross that one off the list now.

Usually, posts older than 30 days go behind the pay­wall but I’ve made this one free to every­one. It also includes two doc­u­ment­ar­ies, Stewart about the Scottish racing driver Jackie Stewart and some oth­er 60s icons, The Beatles in the restored doc­u­ment­ary Let It Be.

Where to watch Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Aotearoa, Australia, Canada, Ireland and UK: Streaming on Disney+

USA: Streaming on Hulu

Further listening

I have my reg­u­lar catch-up with Emile Donovan on RNZ Nights tonight at about 9.40pm. I’ll be talk­ing about Ant Timpson’s Bookworm, Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net and films for International Cat Day. Why not tune in a bit earli­er and throw your hat in to the ring for Emile’s nightly quiz?!

Favourite comments

Yesterday’s recom­mend­a­tion, Man on Wire, was pop­u­lar. If you do watch some­thing that I’ve reminded you about, please let friends and fam­ily know where you got the idea.

Reader VS of Wellington said, “One of the best docs ever! That and Capturing the Freidmans! Oh, and Into the Void. Ha ha.”

And read­er NoWrongAnswer said, “Thanks. I am going to rush that to the top of my long list of movies to watch. :)”