The latest film in the long-running franchise has just arrived in UK cinemas.
Given that the franchise includes both one of the best twists and one of the worst twists of all time, the ending of a Planet of the Apes film is always going to be an interesting affair – and the same is true for the latest film in the series Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.
The film picks up 300 years after the events of the recent reboot trilogy starring Andy Serkis, and finds Earth in a very different place. The few remaining humans appear to be largely feral creatures and apes are very much ruling things, even if they haven’t quite reached the level of civilisation we saw in the very first film from 1968.
Our way into this world is through young ape Noa (Owen Teague) a young member of an isolated clan who seems to have little knowledge of the world beyond his settlement and is completely unaware of the fact that humans were once the planet’s dominant force.
Things all change when his clan is attacked by another tribe, led by a monstrous villain named Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand) who dubiously claims that his actions are in the name of Ceasar – whose legacy he seems to have dangerously misinterpreted.
Noa is the only member of his tribe to evade murder or capture following this attack, and so he sets about tracking Proximus and fighting back, allying himself with a wise orangutan named Raka and a human named Mae (Freya Allan) – who is a lot more intelligent than he had imagined – in the process.
This all leads to an epic final act as Noa comes face to face with Proximus. If you’ve seen the film and need a recap of the final moments, read on to have the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes ending explained.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes ending explained
After Mae informs Raka and Noa that Proximus has taken his prisoners to a settlement near an old human bunker, the group close in on their destination – but soon find themselves under attack once again.
In the melee that follows, Raka sacrifices himself to save Mae and is swept away to sea. Meanwhile Mae and Noa are taken to Proximus’s camp, where the rest of the Noa’s clan has been kept following their earlier capture.
Here, Proximus delivers a speech in which he outlines his desires: he wants to gain access to the bunker so he can use the human technology hidden within it, but has so far failed to break down the gates.
He also tries to recruit Noa to his side and warns him against following Mae – telling him that humans can never be trusted and that she does not have his best interests at heart.
This leads to Noa confronting her, and she admits that she knows how they can get into the bunker and that she wants to get in for her own reasons: she’s looking for a book that she says has the power to give humanity its voice once again.
They agree on a deal to help each other, with Noa planning to destroy the bunker once Mae has got what she needs in order to prevent Proximus from gaining any tools that might further increase his power.
And so, together with Noa’s friends Soona and Anaya, they plant gunpowder by a dam near the bunker – but not before Mae suffocates Proximus’s human servant Trevathan, who had threatened to expose their plan. The apes seem shocked by this act of brutality, but help Mae dispose of the body nonetheless.
They are successful in gaining access to the bunker and – among various firearms – Mae soon finds what she is looking for, which turns out not to be a book but a piece of technology that looks like some kind of modem.
Meanwhile, during her search, the apes find an old human book that includes illustrations of their species in cages, which again seems to make them doubt the goodness of humans.
On their way out of the bunker, the group find a major spanner in the works: Proximus is standing at the entrance, and he soon takes Noa’s friend Soona captive and threatens to kill her unless he is told where the weapons are.
Instead of obliging, Mae sets of the explosives they had earlier planted and runs away, which leads to major flooding and a tricky escape for the apes. Both Noa and Proximus make their way out and the latter attacks the former – whose prospects of escape do not look very good.
But just as things appear completely desperate, Noa masters a song that his late father used to sing, which has the power of summoning a group of eagles. The birds arrive on the scene almost instantly and attack Proximus – who falls to his death as a result.
With his clan now safe, Noa departs to rebuild their old settlement, while Mae returns to say goodbye. Together, they discuss whether humans and apes really can live side by side, and it appears that Noa is having a few doubts about this.
As the film ends, we see Mae making her way to a satellite base, where it turns out there are dozens more surviving humans working together.
She hands someone the device she had retrieved from the bunker and it is plugged into a computer, which appears to re-activate the satellites at the base and allows them to make contact with other humans around the world – undoubtedly setting up a more epic film next time around.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is now showing in UK cinemas.
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