Review #200: 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes' (1970)

With the recent release of franchise re-booter Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2011), it seemed like a good time to re-visit the sequels to the original Planet Of The Apes (1968) film. The original is enormously popular even now and contains many popular quotes, but the sequels I can remember little of. I watched them as a child, but cannot recall which ones I saw and even if I saw them in order. This is the first sequel, and carries on immediately after we watched Charlton Heston on his knees in front of the half-buried Statue of Liberty at the end of the first.

Taylor (Charlton Heston) rides off on his horse with mute simpleton (and co-incidentally beautiful) Nova (Linda Harrison). When being met by a giant wall of fire, Taylor goes to check it out only to disappear into the side of the mountain. Meanwhile, an astronaut on a rescue mission who has followed Taylor's path, John Brent (James Franciscus), has crashed on the ape-ruled planet, and discovers the apes plans to march on a mysterious underground city they believe may be run by humans. With the help of friendly ape Zira (Kim Hunter), he gets there first along with Nova, only to discover it is run by strange telekinetic humans in crap costumes that worship their God - a nuclear bomb.

While this was a perfect opportunity to develop and enlarge the franchise's mythology, the decision to introduce the mind-reading humans was a bad one. The best thing about the original was the role-reversal of the apes and humans, the former being vastly intelligent and powerful while the latter being silent and enslaved. The humans in there cheap-looking futuristic costumes and rather silly abilities, clash with the original's ideals. And the fact that so little action is focused on the apes takes the magic out of it. Though Heston does appear in what could be called an extended cameo, new lead Franciscus is simply a bland carbon-copy of Taylor's character and does not share the acting chops and gravel-faced talents of Heston. Franciscus would spend the majority of his career starring in Italian giallo films, namely Argento's The Cat O' Nine Tales (1971).

When I was ready to completely write the film off, however, then came the completely depressing and quite shocking ending, which certainly bumped the film up a few notches for me. But apart from that, the film is rather bland, silly, and does nothing to extend or improve upon the original, which still remains a very solid sci-fi film.


Directed by: Ted Post
Starring: James Franciscus, Kim Hunter, Linda Harrison, Maurice Evans, Charlton Heston
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie