Review by Kelly Parks

BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES - 1973 20th Century Fox RATINGS: Finland: K-16 / Germany: 12 / Sweden: 15 / UK: PG/ USA: G

In the tradition of the Planet of the Apes franchise, let's begin the story with the standard Huge Plot Hole. The film opens to a brief interlude with narrator John Huston (THE BLACK CAULDRON) as an ape known as The Lawgiver, speaking in the year 2670. We quickly flash back to what must be the early 21st century (given that the last movie, BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES, took place in 1991, and this is clearly not more than 10 or 20 years later).

This is a post-nuclear holocaust world. A small group of human and ape survivors are gathered in Ape City, a tiny village made up mostly of treehouses, which is ruled over by the ape king Caesar (Roddy McDowell: PLANET OF THE APES, FRIGHT NIGHT), the child of the Apes from the future: Cornelius and Zira. Unlike the Ape City in the first film, this one has humans and apes living side by side, although apes are clearly on the top rung of society.

And the plot hole? I'm getting there. In the first movie we see the Earth of the year A.D. 3955. This is a world ruled by upright, sentient, speaking apes (Or at least, the part of the world we see – who knows what's going on in Asia, Australia, etc.). Humans here are mute and savage. The only explanation we're given for this state of affairs is an ancient nuclear war that destroyed human civilization. The apes took over in the aftermath.

!!!SCIENCE MOMENT!!!:
The movies never really say exactly how modern apes are transformed into intelligent simians. Many assume that it must be either evolution or mutations from lingering radiation. Neither of these can be the answer.

Something in the neighborhood of 5 million years separates modern humans and modern chimpanzees from their common ancestor. Two thousand years ain't gonna do it. Evolution needs more time to make changes that dramatic.

And as for radiation, the answer is no for the same reason the answer would be no for radiation creating the giant ants in THEM. Mutations just don't work that way. They almost always cause bad changes in genes, that result in still births or shortened life spans. (If you take the text from a book and randomly scatter the letters, what are the chances the book will be better? Odds are it won't even be legible anymore).

The one and only way these apes could exist is if they were created deliberately. A great deal of genetic engineering is the only answer. The Theory of Special Creation would actually apply, although their creator was something less than divine.

So here's the problem. Twenty years after CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, where shambling, inarticulate apes were being used as slaves, all of simian kind has been transformed into the upright, speaking creatures we saw in the first movie, WITH NO EXPLANATION AS TO HOW THIS HAPPENED! I mean, what the hell?

Okay, I feel better. This movie is mildly interesting but certainly not the best of the series. Caesar's authority is being challenged by General Aldo (Claude Akins: THE CURSE, THE NORLISS TAPES [TV]), leader of the gorilla soldiers. Aldo has no love for humans, and almost kills the human school teacher when the teacher commits the unpardonable sin of saying, "No!" to Aldo, a word humans are forbidden from speaking to Apes because it's a reminder of the days when apes were enslaved.

The leader of the human faction is MacDonald (Austin Stoker: TWISTED BRAIN), the brother of the MacDonald who worked as the assistant to the Governor (and befriended Caesar) in the previous movie. MacDonald tells Caesar that tapes of his parents still exist in the underground archives under the radioactive ruins of the city where Caesar was once a slave. Searching for wisdom and believing the words of his parents will provide what he needs, Caesar and MacDonald decide on an expedition into the ruined city. They bring along Virgil (Paul Williams: PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, HEADLESS BODY IN A TOPLESS BAR, SOLAR CRISES), an ape scientist.

The final confrontations between the apes and the city-dwellers and between Caesar and Aldo are very predictable, and the stilted dialogue and unbelievable (even for a movie like this) characters make this my least favorite of the series. I give it two shriek girls.

This review copyright 1999 E.C.McMullen Jr.



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