Conquest For The Planet Of The Apes (1972)

WARNING

THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS.

IF YOU WISH TO AVOID SPOILERS THEN DON'T READ THE BITS WRITTEN IN RED.

OTHER THAN THIS BIT, OBVIOUSLY.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

I really couldn't be bothered to watch Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes (COTPOTA). After watching part three of the original five movies I had the strongest feeling that the franchise was bound to be one depressing drastic duffer after another. However once I finally forced myself down in order to tough out COTPOTA I begrudgingly found myself to be experiencing an emotion strangely close to satisfaction.

The biggest issue I had with Escape From The Planet Of The Apes was how boring it was. I learned nothing new at all and found myself waiting endlessly for something to happen, it was less than a-peal-ing (again, so sorry). COTPOTA on the other hand is tightly structured, quite well written, interesting and exciting enough to have kept me entertained four its entire eighty minute running time.

The story picks up in the 1990's. All of the worlds cat and dogs have been wiped out after some kind of plague, causing the human race to turn to apes as their main source for domesticated house pets. However after a short time people realised the learning potential when it comes to apes and soon the species is enslaved. Caesar (The worlds only talking ape, born of Cornelius and Zira from the first three installments) is forced into hiding when the government realise that he may be a danger to the future of the human race and so attempts to blend in with the slaves. As a slave he is witness to the amount mistreatment the apes suffer at the hands of the humans and so decides to lead a revolt against the human race and allow the apes to claim the earth for themselves.

The story is interesting and caused an intriguing amount of conflict within me. On one hand I was egging the apes on, agreeing that they had to punish the humans for the years of pain and anguish caused, while on the other hand I couldn't really route for the apes because, if they were to succeed in their plight then that would cause the human race to be wiped out and set wheels into motion that would lead to Charlton Hestons comeuppance on the original planet of the apes. This conundrum is something which the filmmakers abuse very well during the course of the film and is played out expertly by Roddy McDowall, this time portraying Caesar.

Roddy's performance in COTPOTA is by far his best of the entire franchise. He's always stood out to me as being able to project his character very well through the heavy and often silly looking makeup but his character's transformation in this film is something which should be applauded. When COTPOTA starts, you like the character and sympathise with him. By its end he is a scary, power hungry sole hell bent on revenge. This transformation happens subtlety and smoothly throughout the full running time of the feature and I for one loved it. There aren't really any other major performances that stand out during the film but Roddy's stands out and is strong enough to carry the entire film effortlessly.

As has become to be expected with this franchise, COTPOTA is riddled with underlying themes. This time around the major focus is upon slavery, and how human beings will always abuse their right over others. The obvious parallels between the enslaving of the apes and the abundant use of black slaves in our not so distant history is even reference directly in the film when the films only black character, MacDonald, supports and aids Caesar at the start of the rebellion.

Direction wise the films is mostly a success. The film captures the right mood and tone for the duration, something which even the first Planet Of The Apes didn't quite do. It would however be fair to say that there are a couple of moments in the film when the direction feels a little forced and ham handed, most notably in the scene when Caesar is introduced to the other slaves in the compound. Thankfully though, this scene and the few other slightly dodgy ones pass quickly and are soon forgotten in favour of COTPOTA's greater moments. It's not surprising that after this, director J. Lee Thompson was kept on in order to make the franchises final installment.

My final piece of praise goes out to the writing of COTPOTA which I thought was fantastically well thought through. What writer Paul Dehn did with this film was bring the entire franchise round full circle, tying up the story, the characters and the themes perfectly. What his film does better than any other intended franchise closer that comes to mind, is not only puts and end to the story once and for all, but also opens up perfectally for the beginning of film one. If you were insane and had way to much time on your hands then you could theoretically go straight from watching COTPOTA to watching film one and have the two films marry together seamlessly, thus causing the infinite loop that the franchise as a whole depicts. Its very clever, it really sparked my imagination and caused me to think, something which not one of the other sequels managed. This was Paul's intent when he wrote it and for my money he succeeded, it's just a shame that producer Arthur P. Jacobs went into production on film five after this, pretty much ruining all the hard work Paul put in to begin with. I'm not however going to hold this against COTPOTA, but you can bet your ass it's going to hurt Battle For The Planet Of The Apes ratings when I write about that one!

In short, COTPOTA is a decent sequel and would have been a fantastic ending to this very much flawed franchise. It's also worth noting that this film only cost 1.8 million dollars to make, proving that a hefty budget doesn't necessarily make a good, entertaining film.

Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes gets...

                                     

3.5 out of 5, its top banana (again I'm so, so sorry)