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
After suffering through this franchises tragic second part I went into Escape From The Planet Of The Apes with understandably low expectations. I was however somewhat intrigued as to where the story was going to go after having witnessed all the characters explode in text form during the closing moments of film two. So without hesitation I charged head first into the franchises most boring installment thus far.
Some rather speedy plot fudging starts off the story by revealing that Cornelius and Zira managed to escape earth in 3978 A.D in one of the two broken down spacecrafts from the first two films. It isn't explained how they learned to fly the ships, or really how they happened to find them in the middle of the danger zone but, like it or not, they made it off the planet before Heston blew it all up. A couple of moments later comes the realisation that not only did the apes make it off earth in time, but they also jumped back in time to present day (1973). Soon Cornelius and Zira make a new home for themselves on earth, only to have their peace torn asunder by some unmotivated dick head in a suit who simply wants to kill the ape couple in order to save his own ass.
So there we have it, it's a re telling of the first film but this time with the roles reversed and the apes having to deal with our human bullshit instead of the other way around. It's a story that, once you've seen film one, feels utterly pointless.
To make matters worse the pacing on the film is about as slow as my granny on ketamine. For the entire first hour viewers are treated to a complete retreading of the story thus far, something which, if you're bothering to watch the third film, you should already know. Its as if the producers wanted to reboot the films after the poor reception of the second one, but rather than ditching the story arc altogether they insist on trying to string it all in to one gigantic shit bundle. The very few new plot developments in Escape From The Planet Of The Apes are predictable, boring and only further the idea that this franchise really doesn't have anywhere else to go.
Tonally the series makes an odd turn in Escape. Rather than sticking with the franchises successful blend of action-adventure, the writers have gone with a more comedic lighter hearted tone. This move fails in very dramatically. Every intentional joke the script tries to make falls completely flat, causing the film to loose whatever edge it may have had to begin with. It reminds me in many ways of the 5th Star Trek motion picture, but even that had a level of charm, something Escape From The Planet Of The Apes has next to none of.
My other major issue with the film comes in the form of its soundtrack, this time marking the return of the mighty Gerry Goldsmith. It would seem though that dear old Gerry has suffered some kind of major stroke since 1968, producing here one of the cheesiest motion picture soundtracks I've ever heard. I suspect that this was supposed to reflect what was popular at the time seeing as the soundtrack bares a striking resemblance to another 1971 classic, Shaft. I didn't dig it!
On the up side pretty much every actor does an OK job. Despite the ludicrous story and sloppy script the actors manage to maintain some level of dignity. It also helps having both Roddy McDowell and Kim Hunter return who, despite makeup which appears to be getting worse with each new film, manage portray their apey alter ego's just as well as they did in films one and two.
Sadly though, the acting quality being acceptable is just about the only thing that makes Escape From The Planet Of The Apes a better film than Beneath The Planet Of The Apes. Its not a very good film at all. It's slow, badly written and incredibly boring.
1 out of 5
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