Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)

 

Genre: Sci-fi/ Action

Time: 1h 35mins

Director: J. Lee Thompson

Quick Summary: Ten years after a worldwide series of ape revolutions and a brutal nuclear war among humans, Caesar must protect survivors of both species from an insidious human cult and a militant ape faction alike.

I suffered through this for a very sweet ending.

Now we are finally at this era's end of these films, the budget has been lowered even more and it is so obvious they were scraping every penny. I don't think thr monkeys' mouths moved much, and also don't even get me started on the very obvious gorilla masks folding inwards at times.

Whilst the last one was a clear indicator that it wanted to be a slow-burning uprising, this one isn't so sure what it wants to be. There are moments where it feels like it wants to burst out in a huge battle, and then it seems it wants to be more calm and diplomatic about things. This made it really hard to get into personally as it was all over the place. 

I think this could have been interesting to watch as mainly about the fight of choosing to be with or against humans. Changing history even. But it's just not that interesting sadly. For a series that talks about evolution, religion vs science, nuclear war, political and ethical power struggles and slavery, it's a bit bizarre this film ends on “some people are bad? That's a shame.”

That said, the ending is very sweet in my eyes. Finally through years of hard work and dedication, apes and humans were able to live together. Sure, we don't really get to see how that happened, but I'm tired of this era's version of them. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch this again unless I wanted to watch them all again as a refresh.

4/10

"All knowledge is for good. Only the use to which you put it can be good or evil."