Beneath The Planet Of The Apes (1970)

1968's “Planet of the Apes” is one of the most fondly remembered films from the early years of sci-fi cinema. Even today it’s still better than a high proportion of the sci-fi movies being produced, including the lamentable 2001 remake in which Tim Burton manages to produce a technically proficient but vastly inferior 're-imagining' of the original plot. However, despite its faults even Burton’s much-derided remake fails to fall to the depths of some of the original film’s sequels such as the first follow-up movie.

The problems here are apparent right from the start. The star of the original, Charlton Heston, allegedly refused to make more than a brief appearance in the sequel and therefore there has to be another space mission sent to rescue the missing astronauts, despite the fact that they were on a long-term colonisation mission and wouldn’t have been expected to return anyway. The hero this time around is astronaut Brent (James Fransiscus) who is less alienated than Taylor (Charlton Heston) was, but otherwise similar. Little time is wasted on the astronaut’s culture shock when he encounters civilised apes who keep humans as slaves, presumably the director thought that had been dwelt on enough in the first film. After Taylor’s friend Nova (Linda Harrison) leads Brent to friendly apes Zira (Kim Hunter) and Cornelius (David Watson replacing Roddie MacDowall) the film begins in earnest as the characters are drawn into a war between the apes and telepathic mutant humans that live underground and sing prayers at a nuclear bomb.

The plot starts of as an uninspired rehash of the original film and ends up descending deep into a ludicrous fantasy land populated by insane telepathic weapon-worshipping mutants. The scene where the mutant humans hold a religious sermon in front of the the deadly nuclear weapon is undoubtably the low point of the entire Apes saga and the downbeat ending is depressing and unsatisfying. Even if you ignore the mutants the film doesn’t improve much, the sections with the apes don’t add anything to the similar sections in the original film, there are some glaring plot holes (such as the fact that Brent lands 23 years before the man he’s meant to rescue) and the film generally plods along without much interesting happening until the silly end section.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with either the acting, directing or cinematography but it’s all a bit uninspired and doesn’t manage to match the original film in any way.

Ultimately, a pointless sequel to a science fiction classic. An absurd script is the worst problem, but there’s nothing great about the rest of the film either. Fortunately the next two sequels improve on this, but this is probably the weakest of the Planet of the Apes films.

Rating : 3 / 10

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All content ©2003 William Marnoch.

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