Beneath the Planet of the Apes

After the success of “Planet of the Apes,” it came as a surprise to fans when the sequel, “Beneath the Planet of the Apes,” came out in 1970. It is a markedly different film. If you remember the ending of the first movie and how surprising of a note it ended on that James Kendrick described as “constructed as downbeat,” “Beneath the Planet of the Apes” ended shockingly that could never be topped: the ape planet blowing up. That’s a great deal for the movie business over 30 years ago that a major studio with a great deal would end their film in such a dark way and end with every central character killed before the planet exploded.

The main character in this film is an American astronaut named Brent, played by James Franciscus (whose physique does look like Charlton Heston’s). Brent follows Taylor into the futuristic time where apes rule the Earth, and he finds a subterranean city where mutant humans with the ability to control minds that worship an atomic bomb that is meant to destroy the entire planet in case a nuclear war happens. The ape civilization, worried about another group that is ruling the Forbidden Zone, invades the premise which ends in the destruction of the planet.

“Beneath the Planet of the Apes” is different from the first film, meaning that it has a more militaristic tone (which will be seen in the last two of the original series). Kendrick states in his review, “There are explicit allusions to the war in Vietnam, which was at full scale when the film was released.” If you remember the one scene where peaceful chimpanzees put together a protest against the gorillas, and they do so with peace banners and nonviolent protest while blocking the streets. Ted Post, the director of this film, switches to a hand-held camera to give the scene a more violent news footage feeling as the gorillas remove the protestors by force.

The film also focuses more on the horrors of the nuclear holocaust (which is a fascinating thing for science fiction to do since World War II). You can see the suggestion at the end of “Planet of the Apes,” the sequel sets the sheer fact humankind killed themselves with nuclear war, which allowed the apes to evolve and take over the planet. The film is full of images of 20^th-Century civilization that was decimated. The famous half-buried Statue of Liberty is in here with the ruins of the New York Public Library, the New York Stock Exchange, and Radio City Music Hall, most of which that has been buried underground.

A lot of the story takes place in the dark ruins of the subway system, giving the viewers the claustrophobic feeling. Even though the production value isn’t anywhere close to being as good as the original (the sets are obviously sets, and the matte paintings sometimes look one-dimensional), “Beneath of the Planet of the Apes” is still an effective sequel that takes an increasingly dark look at war, which is inevitable.

If you haven't seen this film, definitely check this one out because it is definitely worth watching. Not as good as the first, but good in its own way. But does the series end here, or is the focus now going to be somewhere else? Find out tomorrow in the continuation of “Planet of the Apes week.”