Battle for the Planet of the Apes

A point raised by Caesar's enemy, Kolp (Darden in a mustache-twirling snidely elegant turn at maddened villainy), in this 5th and final Apes film. But a king usually has more than one enemy, as Caesar finds, to his grief. A predictable and mostly logical follow-up to the previous "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes," this one, like "Beneath the Planet of the Apes," stresses sci-fi action rather than any deep themes related to slavery or culture shock. Several years after a nuclear war, we find a surprisingly peaceful yet primitive village occupied by both apes and humans, governed by chimp Caesar (McDowall), who began a revolution in the previous film, as a young radical. Now much older - either about 10 or 30 years older, depending on various sources - he projects a benign fatherly personality. It's not quite paradise: though not the slaves as apes were previously, humans have shifted to 2nd-class citizens, despite an image of equality, and tension escalates due to local bully gorilla Aldo (Akins - 'call me by my proper rank, General, huh!'). Then Caesar himself opens the door to other possible problems by visiting a nearby nuked city (obviously the same one from the previous film). There, the human governor from "Conquest..." has been replaced by his security chief, Kolp, who was bad enough as 2nd in command - now he's bored just sifting through the rubble with his few mutated followers - time to work off the doldrums and teach a clever ape how to show respect.

This entry is generally regarded as the worst of the 5 films, if most fans had to pick one, but it's not a complete waste by comparison. There really is a battle at the end, a mini-war between the invading mutants and the village - but then the final confrontation between Caesar & Aldo is slow going. This film is almost like a precursor to all of those post holocaust sci-fi pieces in the eighties ("Steel Dawn," etc.). The biggest weakness is that nothing really new is added to the saga. The new character, Virgil (Williams), for example, is a genius orangutan, but he's a retread of the genius chimp from "Escape..." What this film does, really, is bring things full circle for the 5-film saga, though not in a very creative way. As with the previous film, "Conquest...", events that should occur over the course of decades or centuries are depicted in the span of days. The filmmakers got all the old costumes from the first 3 films out of mothballs and outfitted the apes here the same way, against logic. The mutated humans from the bombed out city are the ancestors of the mutants we've seen in "Beneath..." - they even show the alpha-omega bomb which, though almost detonated here, remains as is until it supposedly destroys everything in two millennium. However, a prologue and epilogue set about 600 years from now with the orangutan Lawgiver (Huston) shows that the future is not set, so now we're left guessing. This movie was followed by the short lived TV series, which took place about a thousand years in the future.

Definitely the weakest in the series...but alas...my favorite. The final human battle to take over what's left of the Earth is good. One major flaw in the actual battle is when the battle starts we see Aldo and his cavalry charge----then we don't see them again until the battle is over...throwing grenades in the bus. I had this film on Super 8 back in the seventies (the color 9 minute version) and it was a favorite of the neighborhood.

The fifth and final of the original Planet of the Apes series. In between the last film and this one, there's been a nuclear holocaust and the remaining humans are slaves of the apes. Caesar (Roddy McDowall) tries to rule in peace but gorilla General Aldo (Claude Akins) wants to eradicate all humans. While searching the ruins of a city for recordings of his parents, Caesar comes across mutant humans who attack the apes. This leads to inevitable conflict between Caesar and Aldo as to how best to deal with this new threat.

The least of the Apes movies is still quite good. It has solid acting and a script with good ideas, although it crams in a little more than it should. This was such a good series and it is, I believe, under-appreciated. Yes the first movie is widely praised but the sequels are rarely given their due. They're all smart, entertaining movies that tell a very interesting saga.

A limp way for the original franchise to finish.

Its predecessor, 'Conquest of the Planet of the Apes', was a weak entry too but remained watchable, though 'Battle for the Planet of the Apes' kinda straddles the other side as it's uninteresting. I didn't dislike it and it is very short at around 82 minutes, which helps. Roddy McDowall is the pick of the cast, though even his performance feels weary at this point.

A 'strong' 2½* rating from me, if such a thing exists. It was the right time for them to end this (very good, all in all) series.

So the final entry in the Planet of the Apes series takes liberties with the timeline and the plot wanders through other prior installments, but I feel the movie delivers a degree of pathos seldom seen in a sequel. The bookend scenes involving the Lawgiver, John Huston in heavy make up, speaking to a group of schoolchildren--apes and humans--tie up the saga nicely, leaving open the future for more sequels.(Tim Burton in his dreadful remake should have filled in the blanks instead of "reimagining" a different world of apes. Only my opinion.) Things I like include the character Mandemus, keeper of the armory(Caesar's conscience), the trek to the radioactive city, Caesar's viewing of his dead parents in the Hall of Records and the final ambiguous shot of the movie. The money allocated to Leonard Rosenman's impressive score was well spent. The pop singer Paul Williams display a deft touch for acting in his debut. Try and catch this screen gem on Fox Movie Channel and you will be treated to additional scenes involving the always looming doomsday bomb. And special praise to J.Lee Thompson for delivering more with less.