A Series Review: Planet of the Apes – Part 2
Posted by jat59072Others: Reviews, Series
See Part 1 of the Planet of the Apes series review here.
Movie #2: Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
It’s funny when you see a sequel to a movie, and you know it’s not as good as the original, but it does some things a little better even though it suffers from the same problems. Beneath the Planet of the Apes is kind of like that. It’s not as good as Planet of the Apes for a number of reasons: the makeup budget was inexplicably slashed, leaving most of the ape actors in awful masks, it’s message is even less subtle than its predecessor, and the story is basically a carbon copy of the original.
Here we have astronaut John Brent arriving on the planet as part of a rescue mission for Charlton Heston’s George Taylor, who, as we learn in flashbacks of his love interest, Nova, has disappeared into the side of a holographic mountain (yeah). We get through his discovery of the ape city, his introduction to Zira and a mysteriously recast Cornelius, and his mission to find the mystery that lies, ahem, BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES. But that’s just the first half hour.
Now, like I said, this movie is not as good as the original, but hot damn is it fun! You want to know what’s beneath the planet of the apes, as is foreshadowed in Planet of the Apes? SPOILER ALERT: it’s a futuristic city of sentient, telepathic mutant humans who worship the last remaining atomic warhead. Because if stretching your disbelief with a planet of highly evolved monkeys in the first one wasn’t enough, this probably won’t break it.
Of course, being from 1970, there are heavy Viet Nam war metaphors, especially in the successful attempts by the militarized gorillas to convince everyone else that the human population and their ideas are dangerous and must be stopped. And the “man will destroy himself” theme is alive and well with the prominence of the holy warhead, which, in one of the more bleak movie endings I’ve seen, is detonated in the final moments of the film, setting off a chain reaction that decimates the planet (yet, oddly enough, leaving enough room for three more sequels).
Again, this movie is ridiculous, and, for the most part, doesn’t make much sense and kind of intentionally destroys the franchise, but it’s twice as fun as Planet of the Apes, which wasn’t necessarily a downer to begin with. It’s admirable to attempt to make a direct sequel to the first movie, as it doesn’t necessarily lend itself to one, but if anything, Beneath does its best to follow the already familiar characters while showing us Taylor’s foreshadowed destiny, which were promised in the last lines of the first movie. But there’s so much great stuff here too, besides just fulfilling the requirements to be a good sequel. I don’t know why, but I love seeing familiar things that have been aged to look like they’ve been abandoned for a long time, like Peter’s old hideout in Hook, and with some really cool matte paintings and set design, we get to see a lot of buried New York sets are really just neat to look at. And the ungodly amount of cheese involved in the execution of the underground mutants and their telepathy would be enough to feed a small country full of starving children. It’s kind of a mind-blowing experience, the kind that makes you wonder how it ever got made, but makes you grateful for it at the same time.
Deep in my heart, I know it’s not good, but something about Beneath the Planet of the Apes just makes me happy, and for my money, that’s good enough.
7 out of 10.
Related posts:
- A Series Review: Planet of the Apes – Part 5
- A Series Review: Planet of the Apes – Part 4
- A Series Review: Planet of the Apes – Part 3
- A Series Review: Planet of the Apes – Part 1
- A Series Review: Star Trek – Part 5
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