Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

 

The original 'Planet of the Apes' is a stone cold scifi classic. It only stands to reason that the sequels would not be as impactful as that first one. This is certainly true for this one, even though further along there would be some interesting ones coming. 

The fact that they absolutely slashed the budget all of a sudden, didn't help things along either. Neither does the fact that Roddy McDowall couldn't appear in this one because of other obligations, something they fortunately did rectify later on.

Picking up directly where the first one left off, we find a new astronaut called Brent, who was apparently sent on a rescue mission to find Taylor. 

Right off the bat this is bizarre as the first mission was a one-way ticket, so why on Earth would someone send a rescue mission? Also: wouldn't Brent have left almost immediately after Taylor? If this seems like it makes little to no sense, it's because it doesn't. 

Anyway...

Brent comes across Nova, who is seemingly alone as Taylor suddenly disappeared in the Forbidden Zone. They head to the village of the apes to find Cornelius and Zira, but also discover a gorilla general named Ursus wants to march into the Forbidden Zone with an army to defeat the enemies present there. What enemies, you might ask? Well, no one knows, but it is just to highlight the aggressive nature of the gorillas. 

This is strange, as in real life probably the most aggressive apes are chimpanzees, whereas gorillas and orang-utans are relatively docile. 

Anyway part 2...

Brent and Nova head deep into the Forbidden Zone and discover that beneath the ground, the city of New York is situated and they also find a small group of humans that have telepathic abilities and who worship a massive bomb. These mutated people can project illusions to keep trespassers at bay, but are rather weak physically. Brent also finds Taylor there as a captive and when the apes finally descend onto the underground city, all hell breaks loose. Nova gets killed, as does Brent and Taylor gets shot, after which he detonates the Doomsday bomb, burning the entire world to a cinder...

Pretty heavy ending, one would say.

This film truly suffers as a result of the budget cuts. There is little coherence at times, the story is almost a rehash of the first one with Franciscus as Heston number two and the entire subplot with the mutated humans could have been interesting, but is a little hokey in execution. The fact that a lot of the ape masks are now clearly just a rubber slip-on doesn't help things either ànd Cornelius and Zira barely get any screentime. Seeing as they are in fact what most people remember and they are the heart and soul, this stings quite a bit. Again, this is something the other sequels rectified.

There is no denying the heavy apocalyptic tone does work, though. The first one was no picknick concerning doom and gloom, but this one nails that home even further. The downright depressing ending, completed with a really dry voice-over simply stating the planet is now dead, doesn't make one feel elated. And the worst part is, the entire 'worshipping the bomb'-cult feels very, very real. 

A bit of a mixed bag, this one. Fans of the series or of the ideas should check it out. Casual viewers can give this one a pass, as it bares little relevance to what was to come next.