The Inbetweeners Movie (2011)

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 was hooked on the Inbetweeners television series from the start. I tuned into the first episode back in 2008 expecting very little. The early TV trailers made it look like a forced, low brow comedy made to cater to E4's 'trendy youth' target audience. Thankfully I was wrong. It only took the show four minutes for force a laugh from my begrudging innards, the use of the term briefcase wanker granting me access to a slew of non stop seemingly juvenile but actually quite clever comedic one liners that would become a staple of the show during it's three season run.

The Inbetweeners never really had a bad episode, sure there are some that are funnier than others but Damon Beesley and Iain Morris's writing was so spot on for the show that it never felt like a chore to sit through. It's one of the UK's best produced comedy shows of the 2000's and deserves every bit of high praise that it receives.

That being said the story wrapped up very well at the end of the third and final season so when it came to the run up for The Inbetweeners Movie, I wasn't quite sure if it would pay off. Remembering how tragically bad Kevin And Perry Go Large was and considering how close this films plot and background was to that film I went in expecting the worst. Luckily, The Inbetweeners proved me wrong a second time.

The story is simple. Will, Simon, Jay and Neil all go on holiday to Malia, Crete in order to escape the mundanity and depressing nature of their sad pathetic little lives. Their aim, in true teen comedy fashion is to party hard, get shitfaced and have as much sex as humanly possible. Obviously, their plan is doomed from the start and one bad turn begets another, providing much amusement.

As I said, the story has been done before to varying degrees of success. On the whole the story works quite well, the genre has been well explored in the past but it doesn't feel stale here. For the films entire ninety minute running time, The Inbetweeners Movie is fun and energetic with plenty of comedy set pieces to keep the audience entertained. With that being said the plot is extremely generic and forces the film to stop dead every time it begins to pick up speed in order to further itself and the characters development. The reason for this happening is that this is a film and not a TV show and it's this factoid that winds up doing the most damage to the film.

Part of what made the TV show so fun was it's pacing and timing. The humour in The Inbetweeners show was predominantly dialogue driven with plots that lead to a climactic scene designed to cause the characters a major embarrassment. This was usually pulled off trough the shows expert writing and a brisk delivery style crafted by the actors, directors and editors. The problem with doing a motion picture is that this style will not translate. You can't keep adding layer upon layer of jokes in a lead up to a spectacular climactic moment for a full 90 minutes without the film becoming exhausting or losing steam. So in order to remedy this, writers Morris and Beesley have created a script that works like a collection of three back to back episodes with a forced generic plot that strings the entire thing together. Now I can't stress enough that the problem this film has isn't the writers fault, its the fault of how cinema works. I honestly feel that they did the best job they could have done, given the circumstances. That's not to say that they couldn't have embellished a little more in some of the shows stronger aspects in order to downplay the restrictions brought upon by the rules of cinema.

My favourite aspect of the TV show was the adults. The parents, Mr Gilbert and any other adult characters that inhabited the world of the four leads often had a major part to play in many of the shows best moments. It's their reactions to what the boys get up to and their inherent childishness that made them the perfect foils to the boys adventures. The film however, barely feature the adults, only showcasing their talents during the films opening scenes. The reason this was done, no doubt, was to allow the boys to go and adventure on their own, but personally, I think this was a mistake. If it were me, I'd have written the script so that the parents followed the boys to their holiday destination in order to check on how they were doing and what they got up to. It would have been played out in the background of the story in a way that made the boys unaware of their presence and would've allowed the film to climax with a scene where it all comes out into the open in the same manor the TV show always closed, with an outright embarrassment. Sadly however, I was forced to mourn the loss of these characters and wound up feeling that the film was lacking much of what I dug so much about the show.

On the up side the cast were, as in the TV show, outstanding. By this point Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley and Blake Harrison inhabit their characters so fully that it's become almost impossible to remember that these four teenagers don't actually exist. Will, Simon, Jay and Neil all act in ways that feel completely natural to the characters, making them fun, likeable and at times sympathised with in a way that supports the film perfectly. Between them they carried the entire film with apparent ease and turned what would have been a lacklustre cinematic experience into a memorable fun night out. It's a shame that this is the last time I'll get to see these four actors again but at least they've gone out on a high.

The direction was as good as to be expected. Ben Palmer, who directed the majority of the TV shows, recaptured the feel of the TV show and helmed this project with style. The Inbetweeners Movie looks good and plays well. If a new director, unrelated to the project had come in in order to direct the show for the big screen I'm in no doubt that it would have turned out to be a mess. The way film was done doesn't feel like a sell out affair which it so easily could have, and I'm in no doubt that this is thanks to Palmers work on the film.

My final piece of praise has to go to the written stylings of Morris and Beesley. Unavoidable plot issues aside the script was funny, had an original voice and made me laugh multiple times. The dialogue, as it always did in the TV show, feels natural and is uncannily reminiscent of how me and my friends talked when we were that age. There are plenty of gross out and cringe worthy moments to be found within The Inbetweeners Movie with the occasional intelligent, witty one liners that were sadly lost on the audience I watched the film with, but I enjoyed them and thats all that matters.

To wrap this up then I'm going to say that I enjoyed The Inbetweeners Movie on the whole. It was funny, it didn't go all Kevin and Perry and the cast were great fun. On the downside the rules of modern day cinema held the film back from becoming truly amazing, something which makes the big screen adventures of the inbetweeners a far less enjoyable piece of comedy than the TV show which spawned it.

The Inbetweeners Movie gets...

3 out of 5

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2011)

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

And so it has come to this. Forty three years since the arrival of Planet Of The Apes, after numerous terrible sequels and a totally pointless remake, we have all arrived at the only logical final step for this franchise, a reboot. This isn't your average reboot though, not only does it succeed in rebooting a long dead franchise, but it also works as a prequel to the original 1968 film and as a loose remake to the series fourth installment COTPOTA.

For the few of you with a high enough IQ to be able to cast your minds back to four days ago, you'll remember that I quite enjoyed COTPOTA. My favourite aspects of that film being the lead characters dark evolution throughout the flick and the slightly unsettling 'we're all fucked' ending.

The story this time revolves around James Franco raising an ape by himself after his Animal testing lab has been shut down. The baby ape (named Caesar) has a much higher than expected IQ on account of him being born of a mother who had been used to test a drug that had the potential to cure Alzheimer's by regenerating dead brain cells, thusly making a healthy brain more intelligent. Caeser soon grows up to become as smart if not smarter than many of his human cohorts which eventually lands him into some trouble, getting him locked up in some kind of ape prison. I'll allow you work out the rest of the plot based on either the title or the films over revealing trailer.

The aforementioned trailer for Rise really does do a good job of giving away much of the films third act. It also misleads the audience into expecting a big, hollywood blockbuster action film when in actual fact the film is a deliberately paced drama, something which makes Rise a much better film than the trailer advertises.

As any regular movie goer will know, two major keys to a successful drama is good acting and good direction. The acting side of this film relying almost entirely on the shoulders of Andy Serkis's mo'cap performance as the films leading ape. Serkis, now becoming a veteran of motion capture acting, delivers a performance here that is emotionally engaging, tense, enjoyable, fun and menacing all at the same time. The performance, unlike Serkis's live action attempts, is remarkably subtle, relying entirely on facial expression rather than vocal work. At the time being, it's hands down my favourite performance of this year. Sadly the same can't really be said for the human actors.

The downside to the film being told from an apes perspective is that we don't get to spend much time with the human beings in the film, leading to many of them coming across as one dimensional plot requirements rather than fully fledged characters. Playing Will Rodman is James Franco who does his usual decent job, making the somewhat ridiculous story believable while supporting the performace of Serkis's Caesar. The trouble is though that by the films end we still don't know very much about Will. Same can be said about John Lithgow who does a great job of portraying Will's dementia suffering father, only to drop out of the story during the films second act. Freida Pinto, a great actress in other movies, also suffers by playing a one dimensional, typical girlfriend role who, as far as I'm aware, only exists in order to prevent the film from becoming a proverbial sausage fest'. It is worth noting however that the human characters aren't very important to Rise's story and had they been featured more heavily then, no doubt, the film would have suffered in terms of pacing, something which Rise gets spot on.

There is very little writing going on in Rise, not that this is a bad thing. What dialogue there is, doesn't come across too badly with the exception of that inevitable moment when they quote Heston in very much the same way the writers did in Tim Burtons film. As I have already said, Rise follows the story from Caesars point of view which ensures very little talking seeing as the ape doesn't possess the power of speech. What this means is that the film rely's more heavily on its actors and director rather than the power of the written work, but for what its worth, the writing is on the whole solid and serves the film well, albeit in more of a supporting role.    

At the head of the Rise project is relatively unknown director Rupert Wyatt, a man who's previous credits include a small budget brit' flick called The Escapist and a few episodes of Hollyoaks. After reading that kind of resumé you'd be forgiven for expecting the direction of Rise to be akin to that of the Titanic's maiden voyage when in fact the end result is much closer to the experience of watching a toddler fellate a horse, namely captivating and oddly pleasing in a non sexual way. The films tone, pacing, atmosphere and dramatic weight are all top notch. Rupert Wyatt's work levelling that of many other, more experienced directors. His control over the films dramatic first two acts is wonderful, as is his visual flair during the all action closing moments. His work in Rise as a whole comes across as fresh and original, something which I feel should make him a dead cert' when it comes to hiring for Rise's inevitable and in my opinion much needed sequel.

I think its pretty obvious by now that I'm going to award Rise fairly well. I enjoyed pretty much every aspect of the film, only being drawn back when it came to the handling of the human characters. I can only hope that the writers have something more in store for Franco and company in When The Apes Have Just Taken Over And Plan To Lead The World Down The Wrong Path, Turning Humans Into Lesser Beings And Loosing Their Way On An Emotional Level While Trying To Live Happily On The Planet Of The Apes, or whatever they plan to call it.  

It will probably be this years best big budget Hollywood blockbuster. It also supplies 1968's Planet Of The Apes with its 'prime' mate. (Thats the last one, I promise. I just couldn't resist one last chance to monkey around!)

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes gets...

                              

4 out of 5

Planet Of The Apes (2001)

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

Tim Burton and I do not get along. As a rule I find his films to be irritating, dull and near enough impossible to sit through. He appears to encourage actors to over act, he seems to be incapable of shooting a film without calling attention to himself and worst of all, despite most of his films costing a fair few bob, they tend to look incredibly cheap.

Now I know enough people who love Tim Burton and his cinematic ginger haired step children to understand that I am in a minority when it comes to the man, but why is it that every Burtonite I speak to feels the need to criticise me for not liking his work? When I watch one of his films he fails to pull me into the world and invest me in his characters EVERY SINGLE TIME. I never give a shit about what's going on. Take Batman for example, I love me some Dark Knight. Batman personifies everything that I love in a character. He's moody, disturbed, fuelled by anger and riddled with negative character traits that when grouped together, should make him an unlikeable fuck-twat. In that film Michael Keaton plays Batman so insanely well that I doubt his portrayal of that character will ever be beaten. So why didn't I give a shit if he defeated the Joker or not? If its not the actor, it has to be the director.

After a lot of thought and numerous attempts to like the mans films I've decided that what I really don't like about Burton is the very thing his fans appear to love about him, namely his 'style'. When I said before that his films look cheap and that his actors have a tendency to over act, that is the because the film is shown through the Tim Burton prism. I've been told it's a form of escapism, a portrayal of a completely different world to our own. A world where, apparently, everything looks like its made out of plastic, everything is either under lit or over lit and everybody lives in a world where everything looks like a miniature model. I'm just not the kind of person who can become invested in a film unless I'm given something to relate to, some relation between my world and the one I'm watching that allows me to buy into what I'm seeing, but hey, whatever, I'm clearly not his intended audience and never will be.

With all of that being said, Tim Burtons remake of Planet Of The Apes looks and acts nothing like a Tim Burton movie. Way to shit all over my opening statement Burton, now I like you even less you greasy, scruffy dick-munch.

The initial question is, what is the difference between the original and the remake? Quite a bit actually. Gone are most of the franchises underlying themes, gone are the hokey, cheesy ape costumes, gone is the sense of mystery and gone is the trademark B-movie aesthetic. Whats been put in their place? Sod all.

The story follows Mark Wahlberg as Leo Davidson, a spaceman with a great love for his monkey (ah, something to relate too!). Leo is all 'la, di, da,' and happy until his monkey is sent to a planet only to get blasted through a swirly whirly thing in space before he completes the trip. Devastated at the idea of never touching his hairy friend again, Leo steals a shuttle and blasts himself into the very same swirly whirly thing in an attempt to try and track his little buddy down.

Leo soon finds himself on a planet ruled by apes (shock, horror) and gets captured. 'No fucking way' I cried as Marky Mark got carted to an ape city from which he must quickly escape so he can get back to the important business at hand.

It feels a little pointless, remaking a modern day classic that got almost everything right in the first place only to remove all the deeper content in exchange for mindless action, but it has made way for the one major addition to the story which wasn't present in the old one. Feminism.

Helena Bonham Carter plays Ari, the only activist in the ape city who just so happens to be a strong female character. It's her character that has all the important revelations, insights and balls to stand up to 'the man'. As feministic undertones go, this isn't so on the nose that it becomes annoying, but it does feel quite out of place. Not to worry too much though, this Planet Of The Apes is loaded to the teeth with copy and paste action sequences occurring every ten to twenty minutes.

  

The action in Planet Of The Apes is boring. There is plenty of it but its boring. There has been no effort put into trying to make these sequences original or tense in any way, they simply happen in order to cater for the plethora or attention deficit sufferers in the audience. There's one with running, there's one with fire and there's one with fighting, yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn.

The script itself is not a stellar piece of writing. Each scene feels oddly disjointed from the next and the dialogue in some places is laughably atrocious. This isn't helped by the insistence of referencing Hestons greatest one liners on a couple of occasions. If you do wind up watching this film, look out for the lines; 'Take your stinking hands off me you damn dirty human!' and 'Damn them, damn them all to hell!" as particular cringe worthy moments.   

The other bug bare for me was the depiction of the apes themselves. It would appear that on this ape planet, the ape community bares a striking resemblance to that of the ancient Romans. While I'm sure this was included as a nod to the multiple Roman empire references contained in the original series, it feels quite out of place here. Id have preferred it if the apes wore nothing at all or maybe simple outfits that an ape could conceivably create. Even if an ape was super intelligent the idea that they could build elaborate Roman style armour feels way too far fetched and in the long run, made them less believable, which is a shame because the filmmakers got everything else about the apes right.  

On the up side the cast is kind of fun. Wahlberg, Time Roth, Bonham Carter, Michael Clarke Duncan and Paul Giamatti make up quite an impressive lineup. Each has something new to bring to the table and each serve their characters very well. Roth was menacing and almost scary as the films villainous ape leader, Giamatti was seedy and fun to watch as the films main comedic relief and Wahlberg does his usual job of offering a solid, likeable leading man. One thing I did notice however was that while most of the actors aren't recognisable with their ape makeup applied, Paul Giamatti looks exactly the same in real life as he does a chimp. I doubt I'll ever be able to look at him in the same way again.

Now, lets discuss Tim Burton's direction of the movie. Truth be told, its not actually that bad. With the dropping of Burtons trademark 'style' the film actually feels somewhat more real than any of the directors other offerings. The pacing on the film is very good and the shot composition isn't all that bad either. The film is, all things considered rather dull but I honestly couldn't attribute that to Burtons direction, if I were to helm this film, I'd have done it in very much the same way. In this instance I'm brought to a point of almost tears when I truthfully say that Tim Burton did a decent job with Planet Of The Apes, even if the film is kinda shit.

So what it all boils down to is this. If you want to see Planet Of The Apes, see the 1968 version. Its loads better. The remake is on most counts a failure. Its boring, lifeless, cheesy and an insult on the brain box. But it has a good cast and ok direction.

Planet Of The Apes gets...

1.5 out of 5

Battle For The Planet Of The Apes (1973)

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

"...Somewhere along the line of history this bloody chain reaction has got to stop. A destroys B, B destroys C, C destroys A and is destroyed by D who destroys E. Before anyone knows where they are there wont be anyone left to know anything anywhere."

                                                                 -Some Mutant Arsehole, Battle For The Planet Of The Apes

While I'm fully aware that this quote makes about as much sense as an indigo badger with a beak, it actually does do quite a good job of summing up this floundering franchise. With every new sequel to the original Planet Of The Apes more and more harm is done to the overall story. It's never intentional harm, the truth in fact is that while each film tries to answer the questions raised by the previous entry, it unwittingly brings up and fails to resolve more of its own like some kind of pretentious two thousand and something TV show about people trapped on a mysterious island. Writer Paul Dehn managed to put an end to this nonsense with film four but at the behest of money hungry producer Arthur P. Jacobs, Dehn was forced to conjure up another story for the franchises final installment, Battle For The Planet Of The Apes.

Battle' picks up the story an unspecified amount of time after the closing moments of COTPOTA. The ape and human races have almost been completely wiped out by an atomic explosion. Apes rule over the world but are living side by side with humans peacefully. This has caused some tension amongst members of both species but most evidently that tension is provided by the Gorillas. This minor conflict, mixed with an angry soon to be mutant human race soon causes a civil war, in a fight over who gets ultimate control over earth.

My biggest issue with all of this is that it really doesn't need to exist at all. COTPOTA wrapped everything up so well that I was perfectly capable of piecing the rest of the timeline together for myself. By watching film one, I know how this battle is going to end and who will ultimately come out victorious, so why spend 1.76 million dollars telling me? Money is obviously the answer, cause it sure as shit ain't to entertain me. Battle' is the third film of five in this franchise to bore the arse off me. It's scene after scene of endless drivel, some adequate performances and low budget action.


Acting wise, like I said, Battle' is just about adequate. As usual the best performance can be found under Roddy McDowell's cheesy ape mask. Also returning and putting in an ok job is Austin Stoker as Caesars right hand man MacDonald. The rest of the cast are relatively forgettable. If I sound less than infused on this point it's because I am, I really couldn't give a monkey's at this point. (Will this madness never end!)


Thematically this film stands up about as well as the other ones. Animal cruelty, slavery, social class and racism supply the franchise mainstay themes with the addition of war added to the mix this time around. There isn't really any outstanding message to take away from the film more than 'war is bad, people can be bad, some people are good', that sort of thing. I appreciate the effort being put into this aspect of the film but by the time film five rolls around, it will have gotten more stale than my trainers after a long, uphill run.


As has been the issue with most of this franchise, I can't really talk about the film without brining up its ending which in this instance has been left open to interpretation. The final plot point in the film comes when Ape leader, Caesar decides that he is going to ensure that history doesn't repeat itself. Something which he plans to do by making both apes and humans equals in society. It isn't revealed however whether this plan worked or not. The final shot of Battle' is of a statue of the now dead Caesar, shedding a single solitary tear. This can signify one of two things. Choice A is that his plan succeeded, and everyone lived happily ever after. The second Choice is B that it ultimately failed. Being the pragmatic pessimist that I am, I like to think that his plan failed miserably, with the massacre of everyone on the entire planet, thus leaving this franchise dead and buried for all eternity.


So there we have it, the final installment of the original Planet Of The Apes franchise. It has had its up, and a lot more downs but when all is said and done, I'm glad I trudged my way through it. It could have easily ended, and probably should have done, at film one. It could also have ended with film four. But instead it ended with five, the very much unneeded, tagged on sequel. 


If there is a lesson to be learned from this franchise its that sequels can really wind up hurting the film from which they were birthed. Six days ago, when I first watched Planet Of The Apes, I loved it. Sure it was dated and a little slow in places, but when all is said and done, it was a decent way to spend my afternoon. Now, after watching it's illegitimate litter of runts, I look upon Planet Of The Apes in a dull, lifeless light, its a place I don't want to visit again. Sad really, but that's what a bad sequel or three can do.


Battle For The Planet Of The Apes gets... 

1 out of 5

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)

Escape From The Planet Of The Apes (1971)

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.

Escape From The Planet Of The Apes gets...

1 out of 5

Beneath The Planet Of The Apes (1970)

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

Planet Of The Apes was a total success in pretty much every conceivable way. It pulled in seven times it's own budget at the box office, it transcended the genre within which it was based and set wheels into motion that would revolutionise cinema come the mid 1970's. So it is understandable that producer Arthur P. Jacobs would rush into production a sequel in order to further cash in on the phenomenon. However, sadly for the film makers, Charlton Heston wasn't so keen on the idea and refused to participate unless his character got killed off during the opening scenes. Arthur P. eventually persuaded Heston to stick around for a bit more of the film and hired James Franciscus as a new lead to make up for the loss of Heston. So armed with a new leading man, a more optimistic story idea and half the budget of the original film Arthur P. Jacobs and new director Ted Post set to work on creating one of the worst sequels in cinema history.

Beneath The Plant Of The Apes picks up exactly where the first film left off. We follow Taylor (Charlton Heston) and Nova (Linda Harrison) around for five minutes until, suddenly Taylor trips over and vanishes, mystically into a rock wall. Cut to our new hero Brent played by James Franciscus who bumps into Nova before the pair set off to try and find Taylor.

It should become abundantly clear to anyone paying attention that Beneath The Planet Of The Apes is going to be a steaming pile of ape shit after witnessing the original films main character literally vanish into thin air like a fart in front of a fan. It's a cheap, lazy piece of writing that sets the precedent for the entire film which continues to excrete all over itself at every given opportunity.

Part of what makes the first film so great is the fact that, on some of its most basic levels, it could theoretically happen. It never tries to stretch the levels of disbelief and plays everything perfectly straight thus making the film more interesting and terrifying. Unfortunately Beneath The Planet Of The Apes doesn't make any such attempts, even going as far as to introduce a mutant race of super humans into the mix during the films second act. One could say that the second Planet Of The Apes film goes completely bananas! (I'm so sorry)

Cast wise everything works ok with the exception of leading man James Franciscus. Obviously hired because he looks a little like Heston and was told to growl his lines in very much the same way makes Brent appear more like a parody of Taylor rather than a different character entirely. James aside we see the familiar ape makeup covered faces of Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans and Roddy McDowell although the smaller budget does take it's toll on the makeup which this time round seems a lot less convincing.

The script is (as I've previously hinted) atrocious. The more interesting themes of the first film are abandoned almost entirely in order to make way for a very on the nose statement about nuclear armageddon, even going as far as to make a nuclear missile the leading antagonist of the film. Also shoehorned into the mix a scene depicting a public, peaceful protest, which is in no doubt a direct reference to the protests being carried out across America during the late 60's. Untalented director Ted even decided to shoot the scene handheld in order to give it 'documentary style' realism. The end result however just makes the scene feel like a forced effort to try and relate to the masses of the time, which unsurprisingly is exactly what the scene was intended for. 

Another failing comes in the ear raping, headache inducing cinematic soundtrack. The superb contributions of Gerry Goldsmith are sadly missed this time around with a new score being brought to our ears by Leonard Rosenman. His score, unlike Goldsmith's is up front, stereotypical and distracting. 

Beneath Of The Planet Of The Apes final insult on the senses takes place during its ham handed, all over the place climactic third act. After an incredibly hilarious scene where the super human mutant race sing 'All Things Bright And Beautiful' to a bomb comes a shootout between the apes and the humans. The writers, clearly having written themselves into a corner opt to kill off every single character in one scene and close the film with a voiceover stating that the world exploded. I almost couldn't believe my eyes as the credits started to roll, it came so out of left field that had I not been bored to tears and half asleep I may have been forced to audibly question what had just happened. But trust me, I wound it back and re-watched it, that really is how this disaster of a film ends. Outstanding on every level!

Let this be a lesson to all aspiring filmmakers out there. Should you be put in charge of creating the sequel to one of cinema's greatest accomplishments, don't do what these people did. Decide instead to not make the film. Simply go straight to the cinema's yourself and take the biggest, curry induced shit all over the audience members. I guarantee that not only will they have a better time than they would had they watched this piece of garbage but they'll respect you a hell of a lot more too.

Beneath The Planet Of The Apes gets...

0.5 out of 5