Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

Director: Ted Post

Cast: James Franciscus, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, Linda Harrison

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: What’s more, I remember liking it quite a bit when I saw it nearly thirty years ago. There was just something about that ending which struck me as just bonkers enough to make the whole thing memorable. Now? It feels like the classic movie blunder of possessing not so much a conclusion as a halt to the proceedings. Taylor (Charlton Heston, returning but with a look plastered on his face that hopes beyond hope no one will notice him) pushes a giant red button in the furthest depths of the Forbidden Zone, and then we get Orson Welles’ non-Union equivalent in place of what would have satisfied simple, child-like tastes: a big explosion.

The problems with this one go a fair bit deeper (Ha. Get it?) than just the ending. The special effects are somehow even more dodgy than in <its predecessor>. Sure, some of that could be written off to the fact that some of the potentially more epic sights are actually tricks played on the apes by the denizens of the Forbidden Zone, but it’s pretty difficult to not get pulled out of the movie when battle scenes are actually two different shots—one of apes wandering the desert, the other of a fire—optically processed together.

One might be able to get over all that and try to embrace that vibe I must have seen it way-back-when, if it weren’t for the fact that the film feels the need to speed through all of the story beats of the last film, only with Brent (Francsiscus; speaking of bargain basement replacements for the iconic). This serves to keep me from really enjoying it, even on the terms of pure B-movie cheese. It gets a bit boring.

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Director: Franklin J. Schaffner

Cast: Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Maurice Evans, Kim Hunter

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure. Those far-flung summers where all I need out of life was what I’ve come to think of as the Albertson’s Special. Some chicken from the Deli, and five VHS (kids, ask your parents) rentals (kids, ask your parents) from the grocery video department (kids, ask your grandparents). Perfectly fit for five-film franchises (at the time) of varying quality, like this or the Superman films (yes, I’m counting Supergirl (1984), and you should, too; it’s better than Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)).

Man, to live again in a time when cholesterol and VHS tapes were all one needed on a hot day…

Did I Like It: If you’re reading this review, you’ve probably already seen the movie. Or, at least, you’ve seen the last few seconds of it. The ending was ruined a good fifteen years before I was ever born. But, if you’re a fan of that particular brand of pulpy sci-fi (read: the kind of stuff at which Arthur C. Clarke, and by extension, Stanley Kubrick, would turn up their noses), then there is hardly a movie I could recommend more. One might be tempted—before getting into either actor’s later politics—to say that Heston is really just bringing the same schtick to the big screen Shatner was still using to make his living on the original Star Trek. Maybe it’s hard to wander around the any American western desert in a torn spacesuit and not evoke something resembling Shatner. That feels like a complaint, but it isn’t. It’s an attempt to bring in more eyes who have just seen the Statue of Liberty (crap, now I’ve gone ahead and spoiled it too) to a movie that has more than few other pleasures to offer.