Planet of the Apes 40th Anniversary Collection (Planet of the Apes / Beneath the Planet of the Apes / Escape From / Conquest of / Battle for) [Blu-ray] Reviews

Planet of the Apes
Planet of the Apes holds a significant place in film history for many different reasons. The make-up effects were top notch for their day and the story is inventive and even shocking. But looking back on it, Planet is a rather dry outing, lifted to a cinematic pantheon by nostalgia and a reticence to go against the heard.

When he and his shuttle crew crash land on a planet inhabited by walking, talking apes, George Taylor (Charlton Heston) if forced into the unenviable position of arguing for humanity in a world where humans are little more than curiosities for the more intelligent species.

By now, some 40 years after its original release, there are no spoilers for this movie. Everyone knows the basic outline of the film and how it ends, so there won't be any pussyfooting around with plot details. Stuck inside the morality tale are nearly maddening plot inconsistencies relating to Taylor which never get adequately resolved. And because he is the main character-the hero, so to speak-these issues need to be taken into account before the end of the story. (They may very well be addressed in the sequel films, though they shouldn’t have to be.)

For instance, from the outset, Taylor rags on fellow astronaut Landon about wanting to know where or when they are. From flip responses to openly mocking the comrade who didn’t make it, there’s never a sense Taylor has any affection for the Earth as it was. It’s almost as if he’s happy to be away from the planet. Throughout the story, he never speaks glowingly or fondly for his home…which doesn’t compute with the final scene. No matter which interpretation of “You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!” you choose to go with, there is anguish when he realizes this planet IS Earth.

Which leads to another question: how can he not realize it at this point? Suspension of disbelief aside, there are a great number of clues through the story which point to this eventual outcome. Chief among them is the fact the apes speak English without the benefit of a Star Trek-ian universal translator. Alright, fine…English is an interstellar language. Then how does Taylor rationalize the look of the humans on the planet? Or the moniker of “man” from the apes? The distinctly human weaponry and utensils? A doll found in a cave near the end of the film (though this one can be explained)? Horses? One or two of these things could be chalked up to cultural contamination, but all of them? How does the end reveal become anything besides a “gee, well, saw that coming?” These things don’t add up in the end. It’s as if the script had a killer idea for a climax which was edited in after the fact.

Are there aspects of the film which rise to its defense? Absolutely. The make-up work is top-notch for the day. Location shooting adds a sense of realism to the story. Heston is mostly fine in the lead role while the nuts and bolts of the story-reversing the modern day human/ape relationship-works well as a play on morality. Yet the entire affair is dry, bordering on the mundane. There is no doubt this is old school science fiction, where ideas take precedence over effects and action. In that respect, Planet of the Apes is a pillar of the genre. Getting into the bones of the overall story becomes trickier.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes
Immediately following the events in Planet of the Apes, the sequel picks off with Taylor disappearing into the Forbidden Zone as a new astronaut-Brent-is approached by Nova. Together, they are captured by the apes, escape from the apes and eventually make their own way to the FZ, only to find this world isn't all its made out to be.

A while back I commented on how the original doesn't deserve all the accolades and credit it receives for any number of reasons. Holding true to that logic, Beneath the Planet of the Apes deserves the scorn of every single viewer for the rest of time. Yes, it was socially relevant to the time period (apes protesting a military action, a group of people worshiping an atomic bomb). Yes, the sets and locations are still rather good, all things considered. But the movie forgets this is about the planet of the APES, not the planet of mutant humanoids. Here, the simians take a backseat to simpler (make-up wise) humans with bad skin conditions thanks to radiation. And the result is quite boring and lackluster.

(The film has the potential for an even more relevant plot concerning the divide between the various ape species and their attitudes toward war. That plot point is thrown out almost as quickly as it was introduced in favor of the mutant hockum. Why, praytell, do the mutants trick Taylor and Brent into fighting one another, yet they give up the minute Dr. Zaius sees through their wall of fire? If they don't believe in killing and have their enemies kill one another, wouldn't it be at least worth a shot instead of, oh, I don't know, BLOWING UP the entire planet?)

See, having to expand a universe beyond what is intended is a hard thing to do, especially when the first film is so diametrically at odds with the source material. How do you create a spinoff when the proverbial wad has been blown on what was thought to be a one-off picture in the first place? Credit should go to writers Paul Dehn and Mort Abrahams for coming up with a new direction for the series other than a retelling of the first story with a new face in place of Heston. But that's all they should get props for. The movie-all 94-minutes of it-is jumbled, taking elements from the first (humans being captured by the apes), creating a one-note lead and then rushing to the quickest fade to black in cinema history.

The ideas of a group of humans who communicate telepathically and can make others see illusions is a fascinating one, as is the notion they want to protect their secrets from the apes. But, really, the apes aren't all that advanced and what's the worst that would happen if they were found out? A couple brains get lobotomized? It's not like there's a massive weapon just sitting out in the open. Oh wait, there is. The atomic bomb, a gold missle-like projectile the humans pray to in a laughable ceremony where the minister speaks and the congregation repeats in song.

Because we all saw the first movie, the first half of this one is totally inconsequential. It can't even shed light on the character of Brent because, well, no one really cares about him. He's an astronaut. Big deal. What else do we know? He looks like Taylor? Beneath doesn't care about these things; it plays on the franchise name and expects the audience to follow along. It doesn't help the entire picture is so tediously paced and the script choreographs the ending at least a half hour before it even happens.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes
The third film in the Planet of the Apes saga is a tale of two different movies. The first is a light, breezy, prototypically 1970s flick while the other is much more sinister, showcasing every negative social aspect of America. Before Taylor destroyed the planet in the previous installment, chimpanzees Cornelius (Roddy McDowall), Zira (Kim Hunter) and Milo (Sal Mineo) sped away from their home in one of the two spacecrafts which brought talking humans to them. They find themselves crash landing on a distant Earth-or a contemporary one, for the audience-where they go from being curiosities to hunted creatures.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes tries to be as relevant as the original film. There's a heavy social message about the way society treats those who are different, not to mention ideas of morality and even abortion. It ends up being hampered by a goofy first half due, in part, to 1970s schtick (a campy score by Jerry Goldsmith, hideous fashions). Then there's Zira and Cornelius being in the unenviable positions of a joke's punchline, though no one around them has the courtesy to tell them so. A mustache-twirling scientist, mealy-mouthed politicians and yet another reduction in the budget and we have a very minor step up from the last film...but that doesn't mean a whole lot.

The human denizens of this universe deal with a question smarter, better men and women have grappled with before and since. Can you change the course of history by killing a young child, or his parents? That is to say, if a young Adolf Hitler was snuffed out of existence, would World War II have still happened? What's more, is it ethical to engage in this type of preemptive warfare? To continue this line of questioning, if a child's parents are killed yet the child survives, does that not fulfill the prophecy by giving him a reason to rebel? Of course, this is part of the reason baby Milo is slated for execution. And if we go the opposite direction-kill the child but let the parents live-you run into the same problem even if chimpanzees are pacifists.

Why does it never occur to anyone to make nice with Cornelius and Zira, to learn from them, to treat them as friends and not enemies? Isn't that the best way to make sure the apocalyptic end of the world doesn't come true, let alone the slavery of the human race?

There is no balance in the movie between the lighthearted (and seemingly endless) scene of Cornelius and Zira assimilating to this new Earth. It's all ostensibly designed to garner the film a "G" rating: don't include anything controversial and the censors won't mind. And that's the biggest fault of all. Planet of the Apes should never have been a family film. Somehow the original morphed into something everyone could watch without being terribly offended. See the countless merchandising tie-ins like pajamas, masks, toys and so on. This is a series about slavery, the end of the world, rebellion, atomic warfare...not humans in gorilla suits (oh yes...check out the beginning) or tired gender/ethnic stereotypes.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes
Easily the most violent and in-your-face political of the Planet of the Apes films thus far, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes surpasses the previous two installments in just about every way. The child of Cornelius and Zira, Caesar (Roddy McDowall...again), has been in the care of circus owner Armando (Ricardo Montalban) since the events of Escape from the Planet of the Apes. In order to promote the circus, the pair travels to an unnamed North American city in 1991 where apes have been made into slaves and pets for the human population. Caesar soon sees enough and, when personal tragedy strikes, he rises up as his namesake would have done.

To be completely fair, there isn't much story or depth here. Caesar is good, most of the humans are bad. Using, abusing and enslaving a group is wrong. Only the black man with a speaking part knows this. Whatever emotional resonance that's to be found in the film is a direct outcropping of what has come before and not anything found in the script itself. Even crucial plot points are left out for no good reason (we'll come back to that in a bit). Even so, Conquest may just be the kick in the pants society needed at the time.

See, the underlying premise is that the cats and dogs all died off due to disease and the poor humans needed pets. So they domesticated chimpanzees and gorillas (yeah, I know...). Then someone got the brilliant idea to put them to work because, you know, the best way to make sure the human race isn't decimated by smart simians is to make sure to keep them on very short leashes. Someone forgot their history where every oppressed group in the history of the world has always risen up and demanded their freedom. Eh, that doesn't matter as long as the Gestappo-ish humans get their boots shined or daily errands taken care of.

It's so amazingly short-sighted, not to mention stupid, that the enslavement doesn't require too much mental gymnastics to reconcile. (Humanity isn't terribly brilliant, now is it? We'll take war over compassion anytime.) But the story is what it is. And even if there are flimsy characterizations, it still manages to impress, particularly with the wealth of silent scenes throughout the 87-minute running time. In some of those scenes, Caesar plans the revolt, collecting weapons from the other apes, giving silent direction to them and forming a relationship with fellow simian Lisa. It can be argued-perhaps rightly so-director J. Lee Thompson didn't have the money for more speaking parts and hoped the audience would simply accept the unspoken communication. (Which is a fallacy, based on the film: only Caesar supposedly understands English, so how did they communicate? Can't be through Lisa. Maybe only through hand-written notes?)

Yeah, the analogy between black slavery and what is happening to the apes is heavy handed, too obvious and perhaps off putting. A more deft writer might have been able to finesse the concept a bit; however, it would be at the risk of not getting through to some audiences. The "dumber" a writer makes the story, the easier it is for everyone to pick up on it. And it's an important lesson to learn, to be sure. Oppression is oppression. Slavery is slavery. Revolt-violent or not-is the only outcome. The movie relentlessly whacks at this element, not content to only drive it home once or twice or five times. But over and over and over and over again. I guess with a budget of $1.7 million, the name of the game is about being cost effective instead of being completely original.

Admittedly, this outing is cheesy, from the push-button telephones made wireless by removing the cord and covering the jack to the lamest force field in sci fi history (light bulbs inside the door jamb). Sci fi, though, when done right doesn't need a huge budget to make its point. It provides social commentary in a futuristic setting maybe in space or maybe on Earth. It supposes a time period we can get to within the limits of present day science. Conquest isn't necessarily done right through and through, but enough of it is engaging and worthy of our time.

Maybe it's not a terrible thing humans were removed as the most dominant creatures on the planet. They're rather incompetent, lazy boobs on screen, forgetting to make sure Caesar is dead after supposedly being electrocuted. Hell, they can't even carry their own shopping bags or circus fliers!

Battle for the Planet of the Apes
The original Planet of the Apes saga goes out with a whimper, not a bang, thanks to film number five in the series, Battle for the Planet of the Apes. Sometime between the Ceasar taking over in the last film and this one, a nuclear bomb has been detonated, creating a race of mutant humans who live in the underground remains of a human city. Ceasar (Roddy McDowall) journeys to the city to find tapes of Cornelius and Zira-from movie #3-because Ceasar has never seen their faces. At the same time, General Aldo (Claude Akins) plans a revolt against leader Ceasar, taking control of the ape/human encampment, leading to a confrontation with the mutant humans and Ceasar.

With a reduced budget and no meaningful story to speak of, Battle is little more than one final cash grab by Twentieth-Century Fox from their lucrative franchise. The script meanders from one group to another, giving each motivations without so much as a logical rationale. Are Aldo and the gorillas so antagonistic that they think of nothing more than weapons? Is Ceasar that bad of a leader that he sequesters himself after son Cornelius to the exclusion of everything around him? Can no other ape or human sound the alarm as Aldo takes control?

See, this last film isn't just pointless, it's borderline intellectually offensive. Is the idea simply to get the humans and apes to a place of equality and mutual respect? Possibly, but that plotline is relegated to a brief few momets of actual screentime. Is the point to demonstrate how far an ape will go when they have been wronged (the mantra is "ape will never kill ape")? Or is this an excuse to blow things up?

I'd go with the latter. All the good, socially relevant work done in the previous film is undone for no good reason other than to showcase a fairly massive fight scene. A fairly massive, shoddily produced fight scene. It's certainly within the realm of possibility that the mutant humans have found working buses and jeeps to journey from the Forbidden City to Ape City. It's even plausible there's fuel around somewhere. But these guys are dressed to the nine's, with all manner of weapons and seemingly unlimited ammunition, goggles, shiny belt buckles, wakie talkies and other objects they logically shouldn't have. While the apes have lived in relative peace for a years, they haven't developed any manner of defense against possible intruders. No sentries, no barricades, no look out posts. There's something to be said for nonviolence-as Ceasar advocates-but this is all manner of incompetence.

Early in the film, a school teacher tells Aldo "no," a huge no-no in this camp. Supposedly, because the apes were servants of the humans in the past and there are still deep wounds of that time, no human, no matter what, can ever tell an ape "no." Yet those same apes can destroy the schoolroom, chase the teacher through the camp and, later, threaten to kill the humans. Aside from their feelings being hurt, what gives? Don't they have the power to forgive and forget, even when the two sides live in relative peace? This doesn't compete; it would be akin to never allowing a white boss to reprimand an African-American employee because of slavery in America. If an ape does something wrong-Aldo does-then he needs to be taken down a peg.

Similarly problematic is the idea of "ape will never kill ape" (an idea taken by Deep Space Nine when no Changeling has ever harmed another). Battle seems to want to have a rational debate about revenge and violence in a society, yet the script never bothers to do anything with it. Great, Ceasar can't necessarily attack Aldo even though Cornelius dies because of the general's actions. But the two can chase each other up a tree-a sequence which takes far too long and turns out to be terribly anticlimactic? Even with this law, not a single gorilla rats out Aldo to Ceasar. Isn't there one tattle tale in the group?

It may seem as though I'm being flipily non-chalant with the movie. Honestly, I am because the script, the continuity and the director all have the same attitude. Before the trek to the Forbidden City, Cesar, MacDonald and Virgil estimate the trip will take three days. Now, later on, the journey from FC to AC seems like a matter of moments. Which is it? Then there's a severe issue with dayight just prior to the final battle. In one shot, there is no sunlight coming through any window. In the next, the big bad Governor Kolp (Severn Darden) mentions the attack will commence at sunrise. Next one, it is well past sunrise...and so on.

Kolp himself is a megalomaniac unworthy of much of a mention. The character yells, orders and sneers through the movie, turning him into the most paper-thin villain in the series. Unsurprisingly, that baddie comes in the installment with the most paper-thin plot of them all.