20th Century Studios’ rebooted Planet of the Apes films became monster successes by presenting remixed takes on the classic tale with some of the most shockingly impressive VFX and motion capture work Weta has ever produced. It was surprising to see a series of blockbusters remain so consistently strong, and Wes Ball’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes makes solid use of the fertile narrative groundwork laid out in the previous films. But while the movie’s visuals are fantastic and its commitment to worldbuilding is admirable, its promising story about the way myths evolve over time gets drowned out by familiar beats borrowed from other big-screen action spectacles.

After three films that chronicled the first decade and change of life on Earth following the outbreak of a virus that both grants apes increased intelligence and kills infected humans, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes jumps 300 years into the future. It introduces a new group of players trying to establish new societies in what used to be the United States of America. Though centuries have passed since the death of Caesar, the first superintelligent ape and leader of the revolutionary uprising that freed his kind, his legacy still lives on in the myths that apes like Noa (Owen Teague), Anaya (Travis Jeffery), and Soona (Lydia Peckham) all know bits and pieces of.

As members of the Eagle Clan — a group of forest-dwelling chimpanzees who have developed a very human kind of falconry — everything about Noa and his friends’ lives revolves around community and their sense of stewardship over the birds they train to hunt. But while the Eagle Clan’s culture is a unique creation of the present-day chimps, there are very distinct echoes of the original Caesar’s teachings in their beliefs that apes are stronger together and that violence between their kind puts them all in danger. Harming other apes is the last thing on Noa’s mind as Kingdom opens the night before he and his friends are to receive the birds they’ll bond with for life.

The VFX used to transform the modern Planet of the Apes’ mo-cap suit-wearing humans into photorealistic apes has always been phenomenal. But here, Weta’s postproduction work and the actors’ performances combine in what often feels like an even more intricate, uncanny way that highlights just how much these apes have evolved compared to their mythic ancestors.

As Noa and his friends playfully scramble up trees or race through the Eagle Clan’s village with all of its cleverly built wooden structures, you can feel the apes’ exuberance just from the way they struggle to catch their breath in between hoots and hollers of excitement. There’s a palpable tension between Noa and his father that’s expressed through the terseness of their verbal conversations, but these small moments of awkwardness — things like furtive glances and hesitant physical contact — really convey the emotional distance between them.

It all helps illustrate how time and freedom have allowed Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ talking animals to develop cultures and levels of emotional complexity that speak to them surpassing humanity as the world’s dominant species. But when a solitary and seemingly mute human girl (Freya Allan) begins stealing from the Eagle Clan, her presence thrusts them into a brutal conflict with evolution-obsessed bonobo king Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand) that puts all of their lives in jeopardy.

It’s hard not to think of James Cameron’s Avatar movies watching Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes because of how effectively the films make their worlds feel organic and revolve around conflict-averse stewards of flying animals. Rather than unobtanium, it’s the Eagle Clan’s culture and identity (also their lives) that are under attack as Proximus enslaves them. But like Avatar, Kingdom similarly posits that working with a good human audience surrogate is the only way Noa can hope to save his people.

The echoes of blockbusters past grow even louder as Noa — with the human girl in tow — sets out to find Proximus’ stronghold and encounters a scholarly orangutan named Raka (Peter Macon), who decides to name the girl “Nova.” Nova and Kingdom’s packs of wild, mentally regressed humans create one of the clearest throughlines between the modern Planet of the Apes franchise and the original 1968 film. Ball pays homage to director Franklin J. Schaffner’s classic especially well through one of the new movie’s first set pieces that sends wild humans running as Proximus’ soldiers hunt them down looking for Nova.

And while the girl’s name initially plays like a jokey callback, it’s also one of many ways the movie reinforces the idea that legends and the meanings they carry can warp over time as they’re shared across generations. That warping is what gives Proximus his power and what makes his relationship with enslaved human historian Trevathan (William H. Macy) so fascinating to watch.

As interesting as these characters are conceptually, though, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes brings them together in a rather predictable way that works more to establish the possibility for more sequels down the line than to really dig into the substance at hand. To be clear, the straightforwardness of the movie’s last third as Noa finds himself trying to break into a Fallout-like vault doesn’t keep it from being an exciting watch. But as Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes comes to an end, it’s hard to shake the feeling that we’re still just seeing the stage being set for what might come next — even after four films.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes also stars Sara Wiseman, Eka Darville, Ras-Samuel Welda’abzgi, and Dichen Lachman. The movie is in theaters now.