Conquest of the Planet of the Apes

Starring: Roddy McDowall, Don Murray, Natalie Trundy, Hari Rhodes, Ricardo Montalban,
Directed by: J. Lee Thompson
Rating: PG
Genre: Action, Science Fiction
1972

Times Seen:
Tim: 2

Summary: Apes have replaced dogs and cats as the primary pets of people around the world. However, as they continue to grow in intelligence, they are soon forced into slavery, doing tasks for their human masters. The descendent of Cornelius and Zire, Caesar (Roddy McDowall) threatens to upset the balance by leading an ape revolution against their human enslavers.

Review:

Tim: The fourth Planet of the Apes movie continues the story that was set forth in the previous installment. It isn't exactly a great movie, but it does enough to keep audiences entertained from start to finish. It doesn't hurt that the movie is relatively short, either. While I didn't love this movie, I didn't hate it either.

On the one hand, this movie is a pretty interesting commentary about the darker side of humanity- specifically, our tendency to enslave weaker creatures to our will. While ape slaves might seem like a gigantic stretch with so many animal activists around, what is scary is that it isn't too far out of the realm of possibility. This aspect of the film was quite interesting to watch. Sadly, it is marred by the sheer levels of disbelief throughout this movie. None of the events are plausible or realistic in the sense. Luckily, this is a small matter that only now and again gets in the way of the movie's entertainment value.

I absolutely loved the choice of bringing back Roddy McDowall to play his own son, Caesar. McDowall leverages his comfort in this franchise to deliver one of its greatest performances. He is terrific as Caesar- believable, entertaining, likeable- and yet, scary. His climactic speech is a terrific bit of filmmaking, and one of my favorite moments of the series. The rest of the supporting cast is decent- I did love seeing Ricardo Montalban reprise his role from the previous film. He always does good work, and it was enjoyable to see him here.

The movie does present some good scenes. The ape uprising is pretty entertaining, but this movie suffers from the same problem the previous film had- too small a budget. While this movie does a better job of masking its small budget, it is still apparent in a few places. I like this story, and ikt is interesting, but I desperately miss the actual Planet of the Apes (the futuristic one). I can't help but wonder how much better these movies could have been if they were set in the future (obviously, it couldn't have been destroyed) with a different story. Alas, we have Planet of the Apes movies set in the Planet of the Humans, which is a bit of a flaw.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes really isn't a very good movie. It is constrained by a small budget, an outlandish plot, and a few moments of less than stellar filmmaking. Still, there is quite a bit going for this movie as well. It is certainly a decent effort. Even though I was aware of the movie's flaws, I still found myself enjoying the experience. This might be a bit of a disappointment, but there are certainly worse movies out there.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Planet of the Apes, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes