What’s New in Home Video & Pop Culture – September 3rd, 2024 – Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Watchmen: Chapter 1 and more

Watchmen: Chapter 1

Back in the Good Old Days, I used to get dozens of review titles every week. In the era of streaming, that number has dropped precipitously, leading to weeks like this, where I only received four titles to review. That said, sometimes you get a week with only a few titles and they’re almost entirely movies no one has heard of. Then you have a week like this, where you get a new Planet of the Apes movie, a Watchmen animated film, recent theatrical hit Watchers, and the newest animated version of Garfield. Hard to argue with any of that! Bonus: less films means I can dive into each one a little more in-depth, giving you more to read on each movie this week. Read on to see my thoughts on each!

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

The Movie: I’ll admit that I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Rise/Battle/War for the Planet of the Apes trilogy the first time around, but when I re-watched them to get ready for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, I gained a new appreciation for the most recent trilogy. And now consider myself quite a fan (To be fair, I didn’t dislike them, I just didn’t love them as much as some people on first viewings, and that comes from a lifelong fan of the POTA franchise.) Kingdom picks up several generations after the end of that trilogy, and I will say that while it definitely helps to have watched those films, you can pick up with just Kingdom and — aside from a few references to Caesar as a great leader from the past and what his philosophies were — there isn’t a ton to tie this new film to those previous ones. So it’s kind of the best of both worlds: a legacy sequel to that series, but a perfectly fine launch for a new trilogy for newer viewers. This new film follows young ape Noa, who runs afoul of a group of soldiers from a far-off kingdom led by Proximus Caesar, a despot who wants to get his hands on human weapons. Noa teams up with a young human female to rescue some of Noa’s family who have been captured by Maximus’s forces, and they journey together trying to stay alive and free from Maximus. Now, I won’t say that KOTPOTA is an absolute slam-dunk; it has a few flaws in terms of its pacing and there were a few story points I wish they had taken in a different direction, but by and large I enjoyed it. It looks like the film is set up for some sequels, as there is a thread hinted at in the ending that it will be interesting to see play out. Despite this movie’s imperfections, I’m curious to see where the characters will go from here. Kingdom also looks spectacular; the ape special effects are, once again, flawless, and Owen Teague, Peter Macon, and Kevin Durand give outstanding performances, even though you never see them onscreen (except as monkeys, obviously). It’s an excellent start to what will hopefully be a new series of films.

The 4K Video/Audio: Not surprisingly, this huge-budget mega-spectacle looks and sounds utterly incredible in 4K Ultra HD. It’s like you have been transported to the planet of the apes while watching the film, with colors that are incredibly vibrant that add to the depth of the images. Image clarity is razor sharp and black levels are deep and inky, and watching it all in 4K is like being in the theaters all over again. The surround soundtrack takes advantage of every speaker in your array, creating an immersive, in-depth aural experience that puts you in the middle of a giant monster battle in a way that you have to hear to believe. A top-notch effort for the A/V presentation.

The Special Features: The standard features include a 23-minute making-of feature that is quite enjoyable, alongside about half an hour of Deleted Scenes, with optional commentary by the film’s director and crew members. But the standout bonus feature is The Raw Cut of the film, which lets you watch the entire movie with the non-CGI-enhanced footage of the film alongside the finished product, with optional commentary. It’s a neat look at what this movie looks like before the special effects are added. Very cool!

Digital Copy Included?: Yes

The Wrap-Up: As I mentioned above, I’ve been a fan of the entire Planet of the Apes franchise ever since I checked the original 19658 film out from my local library (on VHS!) when I was about eight years old. I’m always happy to see the franchise continue, and while it’s had its ups and downs (the 2000 Tim Burton movie is not a high point), Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes ensures that the franchise is continuing to move in the right direction.

The Watchers

The Movie: You’ve got to give the trailer for The Watchers credit; it certainly was intriguing. Unlike so many other trailers these days that spoil a whole movie, the trailer for The Watchers gave us tantalizingly little: a group of four people is trapped in a house of sorts in the middle of the woods with one wall a perfect window in. Outside, some… things are watching them, night after night. And that was it. It left a lot to the imagination, which I appreciate. Personally, I was highly anticipating watching the film and finding out what was out there and why they were watching these people. Ultimately, the film does just an okay job of explaining all of that. To be fair, it explains exactly what is watching them, but the why, well, that’s a little murky. I’ll say this — and I’m making sure not to spoil anything here! — the film goes places I didn’t expect, and that’s a good thing. But is the execution perfect? Unfortunately not, as it definitely has some flaws. For one thing, the film leaves a lot of questions unanswered; not for viewers, but for the characters. The movie does that thing I hate where someone new is introduced to a mysterious situation, and the information is doled out to them over many days — clearly for the pacing of the movie. But I hate that. I never believe for a second that the new person wouldn’t just be like, “Sit down and explain EVERYTHING that is going on around me RIGHT NOW.” I understand the reasons for it, but it’s a trope that really takes me right out of a movie. The Watchers is the debut feature film directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan, daughter of M. Night Shyamalan, and she clearly has learned a lot from her dad; maybe a little too much. She’s definitely talented, but I think I would have maybe liked it a bit more if her first film didn’t play out EXACTLY like an M. Night Shyamalan movie. I’d like to see her develop her own style rather than just ape her dad’s.

The 4K Video/Audio: I’ll give the 4K presentation credit for representing the filmmaker’s vision well, but it’s a little hard to judge on its own merits, at least in some aspects. Image clarity is sharp and clean and the print is naturally devoid of any blemishes or digital artifacts. The color palette however, is almost monochromatic at times, with everything in much of the film appearing either brown, amber, yellow, or some variation within. The surround soundtrack does an excellent job of conveying a creepy atmosphere, with the chittering sounds of the creature piping in unexpectedly from all directions. Dialogue and music both shine, but it’s the ambience and surround effects (plus a nice low end bass channel) that do the heavy lifting here. A solid visual representation but an outstanding audio one.

The Special Features: There are five making-of featurettes included that run between 5-10 minutes each, with a total running time of just over half an hour. Not bad.

Digital Copy Included?: Yes

The Wrap-Up: The Watchers is a solid movie that will surprise you with where the story goes, and that’s a good thing. But I suspect some people will enjoy where it goes while others will not. Personally I actually liked the reveals the movie gave us, I just wish the journey to get to them had been a little stronger. It’s not a masterpiece, but it is an effectively engaging thriller that’s worth a watch, if for nothing more than to find out who the Watchers are and see if that idea works for you.

The Garfield Movie

The Movie: Back in the 2000s there were two Garfield live action movies, wherein Garfield was computer animated but the rest of the cast were live human actors. It’s been almost two decades since the second film in that series, though, and so it was time for another Garfield movie, apparently, and this time it’s a fully CGI-animated film. And audiences seemed to agree, considering that it made over $250 million worldwide (with a surprising $150 million-plus outside of the U.S., which surprised me a bit. I assumed Garfield was mostly known in the States, but I guess I was wrong.)  In this outing, Garfield and Odie get caught up in a heist of sorts when they and Garfield’s long-absent dad, Vic — who abandoned him as a kitten — are catnapped by Jinx, a slightly unhinged lady cat who feels that Vic left her to the mercies of the pound. She forces them to bring her a quart of milk for every day she was in the pound, meaning they have to break into a milk-producing facility. Now, I found The Garfield Movie to be enjoyable enough, but it’s not a classic. That said, though, kids — who are obviously the target audience — will enjoy it quite a bit. It’s tonally similar to movies like the Despicable Me/Minions series, Migration, and the Trolls films, so it’s snappy and fast-paced, mildly humorous, and you can watch it with your kids more than once without it becoming annoying. That’s a win for a kids movie! I’ll also add that Chris Pratt does a fine job as Garfield, and by the end of the movie he grew on me, but I still feel like the Bill Murray/Lorenzo Music voice fits Garfield so much better in my mind than Pratt does. Again. Pratt did a good job, I’m not knocking him. It’s just not what Garfield sounds like in my head after years of hearing him voiced a particular way. Again, kids won’t have that problem.

The Special Features: There’s about a half an hour’s worth of short extra features, including a gag reel, a deleted scene, how-to-draw features, and short making-of tidbits.

Digital Copy Included?: Yes

The Wrap-Up: The Garfield Movie is an enjoyable film that kids can enjoy, parents can enjoy (even if it’s a little less than the kids) and it’s got some great visual gags to lend it to repeat viewings. Odie steals the show, in my opinion, and I hope we get a sequel to this movie just so I can get more of him!

Watchmen: Chapter 1

The Movie: Everyone’s got an opinion on Zach Snyder, and while I have some definite issues with him as a filmmaker, I do like some of his films. I say this because I don’t always care for his vision on a movie; his take on Superman, for example, always felt to me like he didn’t understand the character. But, I never felt that way about Watchmen; I always felt like Snyder was actually the perfect choice to make a live-action Watchmen movie. Which made it all the more surprising that I didn’t like 2006’s Watchmen movie; on paper, it should have been great. I actually think Snyder’s adaptation is — for the most part — incredibly faithful to the original graphic novel, and I’ve never been able to quite put my finger on what I didn’t like about it, but there’s something. Then DC did a motion comic for Watchmen, which also never quite landed for me. Maybe Watchmen just wasn’t meant for any medium other than comic books? Well, the new DC Animated Universe feature film Watchmen: Chapter 1 sets out to prove that theory wrong. Does it succeed? I’m happy to report that it does! I personally consider Watchmen one of the greatest graphic novels of all time, and so I’m not easily impressed when it comes to anything that might change it. And while the filmmakers say in the bonus features how they had to change the order of some events to fit into a movie’s pacing, unless you have the entire comic series memorized (or maybe you just read it in the past couple of days), I think you’ll be hard pressed to notice any real changes here. This movie looks and feels like Watchmen; heck, even the animation was created in the style of Dave Gibbons’ artwork in the series, which is no small feat considering how distinct his art looks. The film goes through about the halfway point of the graphic novel (hence the Chapter 1 designation), but it still manages to feel like a complete movie. That said, I absolutely can’t wait for Chapter 2, which will probably release at the end of this year (possibly early next year.)

The 4K Video/Audio: Watchmen: Chapter 1 features CGI animation that blends the look of traditional hand-drawn animation with 3-D modeling and imaging, giving it a unique feel, especially since it mimics Dave Gibbons’ artwork, as mentioned above. It looks and sounds great, as an animated movie should on 4K. Blacks are deep and solid and image clarity is sharp, while colors are vibrant (although occasionally overpowered by the highly stylized color palette.) The surround soundtrack also bolsters the presentation, with a generous spreading out of surround effects through each satellite speaker. Dialogue is the focus here, and all of the voices sound crystal clear but also natural and lifelike. Music is full and powerful, and the low end bass channel gives a nice underlying oomph. It’s a terrific A/V presentation overall.

The Special Features: There are two making-of featurettes that both run just a touch under ten minutes each. They focus on adapting the comic to an animated film and include copious interviews with original comic artist Dave Gibbons.

Digital Copy Included?: Yes

The Wrap-Up: I’ve waited a long time for an adaptation of Watchmen that I could truly enjoy. I’m glad the filmmakers decided to break this into two parts because it’s just too much of a story to fit into on 90 minute animated movie. But without a doubt, Watchmen: Chapter 1 is the best adaptation of the source material we’ve gotten yet. I can’t wait for Chapter 2!