Time of the Apes

In this American TV-movie version of a 1970s Japanese scifi TV series, three visitors from modern Japan -- a woman, a boy and a girl -- find themselves in a future which is almost exactly like our time, except that intelligent gorillas are in charge. They meet a lone man who struggles to carry out a solitary existence, and there's a flying saucer that shows up occasionally to act as Deus Ex Machina.

How did they get there? It's unclear. How will they get back? No idea. What can they do to survive? Well, not much, except the boy occasionally helps to divert attention while the man sneaks around to clobber them. There's a subplot about the military ape leader wanting to kill the human man because he thinks the man killed his wife and son. Otherwise, the only noteworthy thing about it is the sheer number of ape costumes on display. Even for the kid's adventure show it apparently was at some point, awful.

TIME OF THE APES (known as "Sara no gundan" in its native Japan) is a shoddily-produced sci-fi/fantasy yarn apparently edited from an unaired television series. I would say that it's trying to cash in on the success of PLANET OF THE APES, except that it was made about twenty years too late.

The pretentiously overcomplicated storyline involves a woman and two children who accidentally freeze themselves in cryogenic chambers (that's right-- they *ACCIDENTALLY* freeze themselves!) and are transported to an unknown period of time where hostile apes rule. Several ludicrous, time-wasting subplots seem to pop up out of nowhere, mostly involving imprisonment, booby traps, and flying saucers. Trying to actually make sense of the onscreen bedlam is a useless and unrewarding task, so just sitting back and enjoying the silly costumes and awful dubbing is highly recommend.

Fortunately, TIME OF THE APES is extremely difficult to come across (only bootlegs and out-of-print VHS transfers exist in the US), but if you ever get the chance to see it featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, you're in for a real treat. It has got to be one of the funniest episodes ever.

This movie features all the standard hallmarks of crap Japanese films: You've got your kid in red shorts shouting his lines, you've got a wise elder sister to explain the plot and people laughing about things that aren't funny to the audience.

Some annoying kids are visiting a lab where they are trying to develop a plot. Suddenly they get frozen and wake up in a world ruled by extras in cheap monkey masks. The monkeys have developed telephones, cars and have a city made of cardboard.

Absolutely jack happens through the entire film but you'll be mesmerised by the shoddiness of it all. It would be petty to complain that the ending makes no sense because there's nothing to make sense of in the first place, it's just people running around. Worst of all the film just doesn't want to end and drags it out for a good 20 minutes after the credits should be rolling.

Bonus points for having a UFO that pops up for no apparent reason.

For fans of bad cinema only.

There are bad movies, very bad movies and horrible movies. This movie goes a step beyond even those classification, Plan Nine from Outer Space bad. The story is about three present day humans who just happen to be in cryogenic chamber when an earthquake a underground research center. When they come to its five hundred years in the future and apes have taken over the planet. Any plot similarities between Time of the Apes and Planet of the Apes is completely intentional although it seems like cinema heresy to compare the two films. There is a flying saucer that keep appearing for no apparent reason and an ape shoot out that doesn't make any sense. All of these plot holes stem from the fact this movie is edited from a Japanese TV series that was never aired. I will not give away the ending, but it is the sort of thing that could result in a failing grade in most high school creative writing courses.

A movie about talking monkeys that have taken over the world....maybe it's my imagination. Anyways, this is a really bad movie. Maybe it was better in Japanese without the dubbing, but the dubbing is so mind-bindingly shrill and annoying that it's hard to watch this with the sound on. The direction is really quite terrible, using the technique of constantly zooming in and out fast for dramatic effect. The apes aren't that bad looking, but they did have a major flaw. Their mouths don't move when they talk, so it's impossible to tell which monkey is saying what. The film is in every way unoriginal and doesn't really make very much sense at all. Though I was entertained, this is just a terrible "Planet of the Apes" knockoff.

My rating: 1/2 out of ****.