Battle For the Planet of the Apes (1973)

 

The closing chapter of the original run for this franchise, and it doesn't quite go out with a bang. Heck, considering the title, there isn't all that much battle anyway. This can most assuredly be attributed to the budget which kept on getting smaller, but they did try to do their best and it is a satisfying end to the series. 

A few years after the events of the last film ('Conquest of the Planet of the Apes') and apes and man mostly live together under an uneasy truce, as humans are still trying to shake off the role of masters and apes are still pretty angry at people in general. In fact, humans are now often treated as second rated citizens by some apes, though not all. Caesar rules, but a gorilla named Aldo wants war and battle and extermination of all humans. 

Not only that, but when Caesar and two companions travel to the ruins of the city to find some material pertaining to his parents, they find that some humans have survived an atomic blast that decimated the city and now live underground, slowly mutating and dying of radiation. This leads to the mutated humans hatching a plan to head out to the ape city (more an abode, but sure) and destroy the apes once and for all. And in between all that, Caesar's son is killed by Aldo, even though the one rule apes live by is that no ape shall ever kill an ape. 

A lot to unpack in the short runtime and it feels that way. This film has that air of being a bit rushed and sometimes you just jump from one event to another without much ado. The villains are extremely one-dimensional: Aldo is a powerhungry idiot and governor Kolp is a vengeful idiot. There's also Virgil, an incredibly intelligent orang-utan who pretty much knows everything about everything and he is occasionally used as the exposition master. Add to that the recycling of shots throughout, sometimes up to four times and an extensive recap of the previous two films and you can tell this was rushed. 

It's not all bad, though. Roddy McDowall is once again excellent as Caesar and much of the supporting cast is good (Virgil is a fun character), but overall, this one doesn't have the same impact as the previous ones did. It's fun if you like the franchise, but it's good they ended it with this one.