2024 just ended so Happy New Year !! 🥳🎂🎁🎊🎉!! I was looking back at the villains of this year and I feel like Proximus Caesar is the most overrated villain of the year. He could also be one of the most overrated villains of the decade.
Before watching the movie, I read reviews about how the movie was a great start to a new trilogy and how Proximus was a great villain, the best character of the movie, etc. but sadly I ended up being pretty underwhelmed by both the movie and the villain.
Firstly, he is barely there in what is the longest movie of the franchise. It makes his introduction scene cool but it also strips away time for character development. He also rehashed some elements from both Koba and the Colonel of War. He is a bonobo that wants to destroy humans albeit his hate against them is much lesser and he captures and enslaves apes to break a wall similar to how the colonel forced apes to make a wall. Proximus doesn't achieve his feats of enslaving ape colonies on his own and heavily relies on his commanders, which makes him feel like a generic "I will order my henchmen what to do while I sit back in my lair" type villain. I also read people praising him as a strategic ape but like the dude and his entire kingdom didn't think about climbing the vault and checking for other ways to enter when clearly breaking the wall did not work ? Wow !! Really strategic !!
People were also praising him as a complex villain. Saying that he wanted to destroy humans to protect apes but there are so many instances that prove this wrong !! In the lunch scene with Mae, he literally said he is willing to sacrifice as many apes as it takes to open that vault. In the same scene he says to Noa "I want to protect apes so I need to destroy humans". I feel like the storytellers couldn't decide what his character should be - a misguided leader who genuinely wanted to protect apes or a tyrant who twisted Caesar's words for his own gain. If these were 2 different scenes I would have seen him as a manipulative villain but as they are in the same scene, it makes his manipulation of Noa feel ridiculous. He also doesn't grieve when Lightning is shot but rather is excited to see a gun. He also pushed apes away while the bunker was flooding. So yeah, he is a one-dimensional tyrant who wants power for himself and doesn't care about humans or apes. Lastly, he has one of the most anti-climactic defeats ever.
Despite all these criticisms, I think he is a decent villain. I do like his design, Kevin Durrand's acting, his intro scene, and his charismatic personality. He is far from being a bad villain or the worst villain of the year but I don't see how he is one of the best villains of the year either because of my criticisms - low screen time, rehashed elements from previous villains, inconsistent characterization, and anti-climactic defeat. I was really interested in the concept of an evil ape misinterpreting or twisting the ideologies of Caesar but it was poorly executed. I don’t really care if he is shown to have survived in the end. I would rather have Rakka come back because he actually felt like a compelling character.
But anyway what do you guys think ?