A Review of "Beneath the Planet of the Apes"

"Uncle Sam wants you for the ape army! Please send us a three-by-five card and photo ID of
your favorite banana tree, as well as most preferred tropical climate to enlist today!"

Happy Friday my fellow ape-planet dwellers. Welcome back! Today we are moving on in our ape movie anthology review. That's right, the Statue of Liberty wasn't the end. Far from it, actually. There is a lot more story to this simple twist than was initially presented.

"You know, you're only a cheap copy of me!"
"That's what you get for your insane salary and
screentime demands!"
"What? Who do I look like? William Shatner?"

So Planet of the Apes ended with Taylor and Nova discovering that Taylor wasn't really on some desolate, distant planet some two thousand and six years in the future. He was instead, on the planet Earth in his own dimension some two thousand and six years into the future, long after humanity had destroyed themselves and the planet along with it, and apes themselves evolved into the dominant species. That's all well and good, with some of the best writing, character and setting development, and make-up effects to tote... but what was happening now? Does Taylor's big "I'm here, now what?" question get answered, or is it ultimately left in the dust in favor of something radically different that only adds more questions. Well, this is the first sequel... and unfortunately it is very much the latter. Produced in 1970, welcome to Beneath the Planet of the Apes, a movie that teaches us that if you thought talking apes were bizarre enough, clearly you've never seen a sequel to a movie about talking apes made during Hollywood's cocaine heyday! Oh boy, what a bizarre yet gripping entry in this franchise this one is. Charlton Heston returns in book-end appearances in the start and finish as Taylor, continuing his story, but in between its an unusual tale of another astronaut sent to find Taylor and finding something radically more weird than talking apes. Let's dive in and see what lies Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

The movie's prologue goes very Rocky II and Superman II before either existed by showing the ending events of Planet of the Apes that saw time-displaced astronaut Taylor (Charlton Heston) and the mute Nova (Linda Harrison) travel through the desert of the Forbidden Zone in search of a new life far away from Ape City. After determining there is no hope for returning home, as he is home, Taylor and Nova continue on past the Statue of Liberty's wreckage. At one point warning, fire shoots up from the ground and deep chasms open. Confused by this, Taylor investigates a cliff wall and disappears through it before Nova's eyes. Unable to reach him, Nova is left alone. Bye bye, Mr. Heston! We'll see you at the climax of the movie! No I'm serious, he's gone for like an hour now. If you thought you'd have a familiar human character to guide you through this ape-led world, you need to seek help for yourself, WEIRDO!

"Woah, what is this place?"
"This Nova is Radio City Music Hall... I guess
disco really did kill rock n' roll."
"I don't know what either of those things are,
Brent."

Just kidding, moving on. Being sent to search for Taylor and his crew, a second spaceship crash-lands on the Forbidden Zone. Brent (James Franciscus), the only survivor, notes he is in the year 3955, but assumes he has travelled to another planet. Oh shit here we go again. After burying his Skipper, he encounters Nova and notices she is wearing Taylor's dog tags. Hoping Taylor is still alive, he rides with her to Ape City and is shocked to discover the simian civilization. Is all this really starting to feel familiar? The gorilla General Ursus (James Gregory) leads a rally for the apes to conquer the Forbidden Zone and use it as a potential food source, against the objections of the orangutan Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans). Brent is wounded by a gorilla soldier and taken by Nova to the home of the chimpanzees Cornelius (David Watson) and Zira (Kim Hunter), who treat his wound and tell him of their time with Taylor. This movie echoes much of what happened to Taylor in the first film, only now it's happening to some guy who's performance isn't as gripping as Heston's, not only because we've seen it already but also who the heck is James Franciscus? It could just be my naivete, for every one thing or actor I know there's still seven I don't know or have never heard of. I found him to just be following Heston's role very closely and not deviating too much.

Attempting to flee the city, Brent and Nova are captured by gorillas. Shit man, Nova just can't catch a break. All these displaced human astronauts are just causing her so much grief. Ursus orders they be used for target practice, but Zira helps them escape. Shit man this is really, really familiar. Didn't Cornelius and Zira get charged for heresy? Whatever happened to that? Anywho, Brent and Nova hide in a cave that turns out to be the ruins of the Queensboro Plaza station of the New York City Subway. Brent realizes he is in Earth's post-apocalyptic future, a realization we were all begging him to reach since you know we reached it two years before he did. After following a humming sound deeper into the tunnels, Brent becomes agitated and erratic and attempts to kill Nova, quickly stopping and backing away to another room. Again, probably just echoing something we were all wanting to do to him for taking forever to realize things. Entering the remains of St. Patrick's Cathedral, he finds a population of telepathic humans who worship an ancient nuclear bomb. Ok... odd, I've heard worse things to worship, but this is... new.

POV: you're begging your unconscious sibling with
a bleeding head wound to wake up before your dad finds out
what happened.

Brent and Nova are captured and interrogated by the telepaths. They turn out to be descendants of the human survivors of a nuclear holocaust. They mutated over generations and claim to be a peaceful society, despite using mind-control and illusion on their enemies. Oh you mean MORLOCKS? From H.G. Well's The Time Machine? The mutants force Brent into revealing the apes' march on the Forbidden Zone. Their attempts to repel the invaders with illusions of fire and other horrors ultimately fail, as Zaius sees through them. With the apes closing in, the telepaths plan to detonate their "Divine Bomb" as a last resort, holding a religious ritual. During the ritual, the telepaths remove their faces to reveal horrible disfigurements of white skin, scarring and vascular varicose disease. That's what this movie has become, less about coming to terms with intelligent apes ruling our planet to intelligent apes warring with scarred, mutant humans that have nuclear power over what's left of our planet.

Brent is separated from Nova and taken to a cell where he finds Taylor. Oh hi Charlton Heston! Welcome back to the movie! I hope you enjoyed your time in the studios' snack bar while we waited for the movie to find you again. One mutant, explaining that they cannot let them leave the city alive, uses his telepathic powers to force Brent and Taylor to fight each other. Ok, so Brent didn't just bananas (pun IN-tended) earlier by attacking Nova, it was the telepaths making them fight for their own amusement. I suppose if you look like microwaved ass and live in caves worshipping a nuclear bomb that somehow still functions after two thousand years... you'd get pretty bored and telepathically make people beat the shit out of each other for your own amusement too. Nova escapes her guard and runs to the cell, screaming her first word: "Taylor!" HOORAY! Nova's first word! This breaks the mutant's concentration, freeing the astronauts from his control long enough for them to kill the mutant. Taylor recognizes the bomb's insigna "AΩ" as a "doomsday bomb", which has a cobalt casing-capable of destroying the entire planet.

♫We are chanting humans... in a movie about talking apes...♫

Ah, the age old "A bomb that can destroy a planet" ploy. Somehow adding cobalt casing to a nuclear bomb makes it planet-destructing. Yes, yes; I will buy talking apes and telepathic mutants but CERTAINLY NOT THIS! Anywho, the apes invade the subterranean city, making their way to the cathedral; many of the mutants are either captured, killed, or die by suicide. After Nova is killed by a gorilla in the midst of the chaos... funny I didn't see that coming, I thought as these movies progressed we'd see Nova become the cohort of many time-displaced astronauts who are showing up... Taylor and Brent reach the cathedral as Mendez (Paul Richards), the telepaths' leader, is shot dead after raising the bomb into activation position. The humans attempt to stop Ursus from accidentally setting off the weapon, but Taylor is shot in the chest as his pleas to Zaius fall on deaf ears. Zaius refuses to listen and decries humanity's violence and the ruination of all things, something the first film already did in a much more powerful and well-written way. When Brent is gunned down after killing Ursus, the mortally wounded Taylor curses Zaius as he collapses and dies bringing his hand down on the bomb's red crystal detonation switch. The bomb goes off destroying the entire planet. The final scene is Taylor's hand on the detonator and as the screen goes while a Narrator says. "In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe lies a medium sized star ...and one of its satellites. A green and insignificant planet..is now dead." The credits roll silently.

"Roddy you sound different." "Kim, it's David, remember?
We've been shooting for a week together now!"
"Whatever Roddy, maybe you should see a memory
specialist?"
"Oh for fuck's sake--"

So what did we learn today? I guess it goes to show that the quality of Ape movies really doesn't have to make leaps and bounds improvements over the previous film. Beneath the Planet of the Apes is a strange blend. It starts off like a sequel, progresses into a copycat, then goes totally elsewhere for the remainder of the movie before the last five minutes turn into a sequel again. To be fair, it isn't a bad movie, but it certainly pales in comparison to the first film. Still, it has plenty of action! ...and the story, while bizarre and unexpected, is at least interesting enough to rope your interest for the remainder of the film. The laziness of the telepaths' initial makeup draws some ire from me, but at the very least the apes' makeup remains stellar.

I was sad about the absence of Roddy McDowall as Cornelius, being replaced by David Watson for this sequel. Though McDowall I guess returns for future sequels, his presence here is sorely missed, being one of my favorite classic 60s-80s actors. Still, Kim Hunter delivers a quality performance as Zira during her screentime, same goes for Charlton Heston and Maurice Evans as Taylor and Dr. Zaius, respectively. James Franciscus however in my opinion just copies Charlton Heston's performance from the first film... and the new ape bad guy general or whatever... General Ursus! That was his name... he was pretty stock, a human-hating general. We certainly won't see that again! Hehehehe iykyk.

To sum up, Beneath the Planet of the Apes is a "decent" sequel. It's serviceable, it's interesting, but it has weak links the chain that could ultimately make or break for certain viewers. I'd say give this one a watch, but only if you're really interested in seeing what happens after Planet of the Apes. If not, then this isn't really "required" viewing. You can skip it if that's the case.