The Caesar trilogy was a brilliant execution of man vs. nature as a concept, but by the end of director Matt Reeves’ “War for the Planet of the Apes,” it was pretty clear that humanity’s days were all but numbered. Generations removed, humans are more of a legend, and most surviving on land are more primitive, with no ability to speak. Even though we don’t dive super deep into Mae’s upbringing or the society she was raised in, we learn by the end of the movie that there are, indeed, many smart, speaking humans who know the ways of the old world. They’ve been living underground for years, waiting for the chance to bring humanity’s glory days back.

Yet, the marketing of “Kingdom” leaned heavily on the idea of this being more of an ape-forward movie, with Proximus serving as a compelling, non-human villain. That left audiences (myself included) not even looking for a twist. We weren’t necessarily looking for a human villain. And credit to Allan, who delivers one heck of a performance to throw us off the scent for much of the movie. Not for nothing, but Proximus ends up being an even better bad guy, because much like Magneto in the “X-Men” franchise, he has a point. Mae makes his point for him. 

The ending of “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” hits hard at an old idea: war will never stop. The apes lived long enough to find reasons to war with one another, with religious extremism and the bastardizing of old ideas leading to a splintering within the society they had worked generations to create. That’s the brilliance of Proximus, who was very much inspired by Julius Caesar as a great conqueror. But there is no better conqueror than humans and no greater evil than humanity.