The latest sequel to the rebooted Planet of the Apes franchise, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, isn’t good. Its wall-to-wall CGI visuals are largely uninspired, a demoralizing comedown from the thrilling look of the last two Apes films. The characters are weak compared to Caesar, Koba, Maurice, and the other main apes of the franchise so far, which is partly why the narrative takes forever to get any real traction. And the pace set by director Wes Ball of the Maze Runner movies, taking over from Rupert Wyatt and Matt Reeves who guided the earlier Apes reboot films, is glacial.

But the movie’s making a ton of money. Audiences worldwide haven’t lost their affection for the Apes.

And in spite of my griping, I keep turning up for these rebooted Apes movies too, though the last one I really liked was the second one, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014). In general, I’m finding unimaginative, CGI-heavy blockbusters ever more boring to look at, and their slow, remedial, film-viewing-for-dummies narratives are so overlong, they’ve become a literal pain in the ass.