Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) Review

"Glory be to the Bomb and to the Holy Fallout."
-Mendez




Astronaut Brent (James Franciscus) crashes on the Planet of the Apes while trying to track down the astronauts from the previous movie.  Brent quickly discovers the truth about the planet as he searches for Taylor (Charlton Heston) and finds a strange society of mutated humans under the surface.


What Works:

Brent is a likable protagonist and James Franciscus does a good job.  He's easy enough to root for, if less complex than Taylor.  He's a solid vessel for the audience to view the film through.

The mutant-human society is beyond bizarre and my favorite part of the movie.  The scene where Brent meets the psychic leaders of the humans is very odd, but a lot of fun.  I wasn't sure what I was expecting from this movie, but it wasn't this.

It turns out these humans worship an atomic bomb and we are treated to an actual church service where we see the humans praying to the bomb.  It's absolutely hysterical and surreal.

Finally, the movie has such a WTF ending that I have to give the movie props.  It ends with Taylor deciding to blow up the nuke and destroy the planet.  I appreciate the f**k it mentality the filmmakers used in ending this film.


What Sucks:

The first half of this movie is a retread of the original movie, just sloppier and quicker.  We don't get anything new from this half of the film.  It's just the same old stuff.

Several of the early scenes in this movie involve Taylor and Brent trying to communicate with Nova (Linda Harrison), a mute human.  They don't really get anywhere and it's pretty annoying.  Sure, that's probably realistically what would happen, but it's frustrating to watch.

The second half of the film doesn't really feel like a Planet of the Apes movie.  All of a sudden Brent goes underground and find a cartoonish society of humans in wacky colors worshiping an absurd bomb.  This doesn't fit with the first movie at all.  While I enjoyed aspects of this weirdness, it should have been in a separate movie.

Finally, the visual effects used for the illusions of fire look terrible.  I get that this movie came out in 1970, but still.  They look bad.  It's kind of embarrassing.


Verdict:

Beneath the Planet of the Apes is a disappointing sequel to say the least.  All of the stiff with the apes we've seen before and adds nothing new.  While the second half has interesting moments, it never really fits with what came before in this series.  It's a weird movie, for sure, but not really worth watching.

 4/10: Bad   

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