Why Are Movies So Long? The Blockbuster Plot Problem In 'Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes'
#272: "Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes," "Unfrosted," "Beverly Hills Cop," "Dark Waters"
Edition 272:
Hey movie lovers!
This week: The CGI monkeys are back and look amazing, but we HAVE to address the blockbuster plot problem. Then we’ll chat about Jerry Seinfeld’s new movie, and give two other Netflix streaming suggestions that are far better. In this week’s “Trailer Watch,” Amazon wants to jump into the dumb comedy game too.
Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes
Apologies right off the top, because in this newsletter I’m going to talk very little specifically about Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. It’s a technical achievement, with gorgeous animation and motion capture performances, but it’s plagued by the same burdensome, gibberish plot that I’ve now seen too many times over the past few years. I feel compelled to address this blockbuster plot problem head on.
Let’s begin with the obvious question: WHY ARE THESE MOVIES SO LONG?!
In retrospect, it was silly of me to expect brevity from a movie entitled Kingdom…of the Planet…of the Apes. But come one, 2hr25min for a movie about semi-intelligent monkeys?!
It doesn’t really come as a surprise. Anyone who has gone to the movies with any regularity has no doubt noticed that in recent years, the expectation is a 2-and-a-half-hour-plus runtime from big IP blockbusters. You may be wondering…why?
Sidenote: The movies I’m talking about here are not to be confused with the over-long auteur movies (Napoleon: 2hr38min, Killers of the Flower Moon: 3hr26min, Oppenheimer: 3hr), which come because a filmmaker has the ego to think everything they’ve shot is gold and the stature to tell their studios to shove their notes where the sun don’t shine.
I’m talking about a very specific kind of movie. Here’s a quick list from the past year, see if you can spot any similarities (aside from the really long titles):
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes: 2hr37min
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One: 2hr43min
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: 2hr34min
Fast X: 2hr21min
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: 2hr29min
John Wick: Chapter 4: 2hr49min
(Dune: Part 2: 2hr49min, sits in some gray area between the auteur and IP categories.)
In a vacuum, it’s important to note that shorter doesn’t mean better (The Marvels and Aquaman 2 last year were under two hours and still stunk) and longer doesn’t mean worse (Dune 2 and John Wick 4). But it’s undeniable that most of these blockbuster movies have a major plot problem.
As in, there’s way too much of it. If you’ve seen any of these you know what I’m talking about. In past newsletters I’ve called it ‘blockbuster mumbo jumbo,’ a laundry list of mythology, terminology and backstory so long you feel like you need a PhD in that franchise in order to keep up. These movies have to do too many things, from tying up loose ends in past movies to introducing new characters, servicing the longtime fans with callbacks and easter eggs while proving enough exposition dumps to catch up anyone who has stumbled into the series for the first time. Make sure there’s a little something for every kind of viewer, some comedy, some drama, some romance, some action, some suspense.
Then there’s the in-vogue industry standard plot mechanics to add in: big action sequence in the first 20 minutes; a macguffin to lead characters from one place to another; the death of one moderately important yet likable character; a little final bonus battle after the climactic big battle for good measure.
Account for all those things, you get to 2.5 hours pretty quickly. For viewers, it’s exhausting. So again, the obvious question, why? Why do you need all those things?
Franchise maintenance! Look back at the list above. You’ll see every movie is the 4th, 7th, even 10th installment in a franchise. In almost every single case, the first movie in that series was 2 hours or less. Over time, more and more required things pile on until the weight of plot is overwhelming. And the studios can’t afford to cut bait and start over.
So yes, we return to my ultimate soap box. When the intellectual property (IP) is king, the most important thing about each new movie is simply that it exists. If it’s good, yes that’s a bonus, but it’s of lower priority than being released and checking all the necessary boxes. In many cases, these movies began as “Untitled Franchise Project” in a stock holder meeting or press release projected out seven years in advance. To investors, it’s fresh “content” to keep the underlying IP relevant and sellable. A corporate strategy to be executed.
And from an economic perspective, they’re not wrong! IP is still what sells. Ask The Fall Guy what an old school, non-IP blockbuster does at the box office (*fart noise*). In less than a week, this 10th(!!) Planet of the Apes movie has zoomed past its box office total, to $144 million and counting.
Here’s one more example to underscore my point. Beverly Hills Cop put out three movies between 1984 and 1994, and now, 30 years later, is coming out with a fourth movie this summer on Netflix. Here’s a quick breakdown of their runtimes:
Beverly Hills Cop: 1hr45min
Beverly Hills Cop 2: 1hr43min
Beverly Hills Cop 3: 1hr45min
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F: 2hr26min
That movie isn’t even coming out in theaters! But without having seen it I can tell you it’s going to have a bloated, convoluted plot that buries the movie in a mountain of fake high stakes posturing and nostalgic references to inside jokes that are pushing 40 years old.
Back when that original trilogy came out, “franchises” weren’t really about IP, they were about a collection of stars reuniting for a continuation on a story.
In those halcyon days when movie theater attendance was high, it was more about impressing the audiences who were going to show up. Nowadays, it’s less about impressing audiences and more about getting them to show up. Studios know they’re lucky to get you a couple of times per year, so they flash their familiar franchise IP and trying to market each new entry as an epic event you can’t miss. Since the early days of Hollywood, long runtimes have always been associated with these epic, “important” movies.
So Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes marches on. The 10th movie within this IP, the first since 2017, and in success now the relaunch of what I imagine will be several more entries, each of which will be 2.5 hours long and hamstrung by the plot requirements of more than 60 years of history. For me, and hopefully for you, it might be high time we hop off the train.
Something New
Unfrosted (Netflix): In 2024, there’s nothing less funny then a bunch of full-time professional funny people trying very hard to be clever. Writer/director Jerry Seinfeld used his pandemic free time to write this feature about the creation of the Pop-Tart, which, by any objective measure, is chalk-full of funny performers and well-written jokes.
The problem is, it’s a movie seemingly geared toward kids (or at least kid-friendly) while being hopelessly out of touch with Gen-Z sensibilities and references: in one scene, laugh lines include jokes about not having airbags in cars and college costing $200 per year (the movie is set in the 1960s). The movie pauses as if waiting for a studio audience to laugh along. Nothing comes.
Even “Seinfeld” is subversive in its own way — after all, it’s the “show about nothing.” “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” was built on a dynamic of Seinfeld being more famous and caring less than his guests. Meanwhile, the effort is obvious here. The movie is cut from the Barbie cloth of product marketing, lightly lampooning while heavily promoting Kellogg’s various cereal brands. I’d call it cute, rather than funny, and watchable, rather than entertaining. It’s far from a disaster, but I can’t in good conscience recommend it.
Something Old
Beverly Hills Cop (1984, Netflix): To test my bloated blockbuster plot theory from above, and before a fourth franchise entry comes out in July (30 years after the last one), I wanted to return to the Axel Foley introduction and see what I’d find. This is a 1hr45min breeze where, literally, only like three or four things happen. I mean that in the best way.
Eddie Murphy’s charm offensive is undeniable, and the rest of the project is so light on its feet that its hijinks to plot ratio has got to be at least two to one. We don’t come to these movies to dive deep into Foley’s roots in Detroit, examine cross-departmental police procedure or question why in the hell our antagonist would even want to ship cocaine into the country. No! We get it. He’s a fish out of water in Beverly Hills, where he doesn’t go by the book but does whatever it takes to stop an evil rich dude. That structure is so light the movie can dance around in each scene and produce unforgettable moments. Hit the iconic techno music in the background. And roll credits!
Something to Stream
Dark Waters (Netflix): Director Todd Haynes’ style don’t usually hit for me (May December being the most recent) but this movie is so purposely anti-cinematic that it’s almost difficult to judge on its filmmaking at all. That’s actually a pretty common technique when it comes to historical docudramas (She Said being a good example, Boys In The Boat being…an example). When the real life story is so compelling and its characters so heroic, as is the case here with a corporate defense attorney who brings a class action lawsuit against a huge corporation that was poisoning thousands of people in West Virginia, the best thing to do is often not get in the way of the storytelling.
You’d almost forget you’re not watching a documentary, were it not for the familiar faces of Mark Ruffalo in the lead role, plus a hilariously overcast Anne Hathaway (an Oscar winner still resigned to play the wet blanket wife role says a lot about Hollywood), Tim Robbins, Bill Pullman and character actor extraordinaire Bill Camp. While the ultimate outcome is never in doubt, if you can get behind stories of Davids beating Goliath and justice in society, you’ll find a good one here.
Trailer Watch: You’re Cordially Invited
Amazon Prime is determined to prove that Netflix isn’t the only streaming service in town that can overpay for super famous A-list actors who peaked 20 years ago, dammit! Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell star as … really, does it even matter? The pitch is Reese Witherspoon + Will Ferrell in the kind of broad family comedy that would’ve been a staple at the box office in decades past (probably starring Steve Martin), but now for some unknown reason will probably go straight to streaming to be watched, mildly enjoyed and forgotten. Still don’t understand how projects like this help Amazon sell more toilet paper (not sure why TP is always the example used), but they’re one of the few ones who are still writing checks so don’t ask too many questions.