...an above-average science-fiction movie in spite of its contrived plot, its star's stilted acting, its forced allegory, and its unconvincing, Academy Award-winning, million-dollar costumes and makeup.
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I have a feeling we're going to be seeing these apes for a long, long time to come. The movie's already been issued several times on video, on disc, and in a box set, and we'll undoubtedly see it again in high definition within a few years. Live with it.
On the occasion of its thirty-fifth anniversary, the Fox studios have seen fit to give it a new DVD presentation, this time in a two-disc, special-edition set. For anyone who owns the earlier box set of "Apes" movies, you'll notice the extras in this new set are mostly recycled from the bonus disc in the box, and the audio and video transfers remain, as far as I can tell, the same. But for those folks who don't already own "Planet of the Apes" on disc and have been thinking about buying it, this anniversary edition is a good route to take. The "Apes" sequels, after all, went downhill awfully fast, so it's only the original most people need to be concerned with.
Let me begin by committing heresy and admitting that I didn't like "Planet of the Apes" any better this time around on DVD than I did the first time I watched it on disc several years ago or the first time I saw it in a theater in 1968. This is not to say I dislike the movie, mind you. It's just that, unlike most critics, I don't consider it the end-all of sci-fi classics. To do so would be to group it with genuine masterpieces like "2001," "Star Wars," or "Close Encounters," and I refuse to accept those conditions. Let me just say I think "Planet of the Apes" is an above-average science-fiction movie in spite of its contrived plot, its star's stilted acting, its forced allegory, and its unconvincing, Academy Award-winning, million-dollar costumes and makeup. To me the movie is simply a slick bit of Hollywood hokum that adds some nice twists and a whole lot of superficial philosophizing to what is essentially an old "Twilight Zone" script ("I Shot an Arrow into the Air," by Rod Serling and Madelon Champion, predating the movie and Pierre Boulle's novel by several years). "Apes" even has the distinction of getting us to root for a totally unlikable hero.
Admittedly, there probably isn't a person on the face of the Earth who doesn't know the plot of "Planet of the Apes," including persons who haven't even seen the movie before. It's become so much of a cinematic icon that younger people who have never come near it can tell you all about it, particularly its surprise ending, which, by the way, holds up as well as ever. For the few of you, though, who are a little fuzzy on the details, here's recap from my earlier review, along with a few stray thoughts.
The screenplay, written by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, is based on the novel "La planete des singes," or "The Monkey Planet," by Pierre Boulle ("The Bridge on the River Kwai"). It begins with the hero, George Taylor (Charlton Heston), piloting an American space expedition into outer space. Where they're going we're never told. Just somewhere "out there" as Captain Kirk would say. Anyhow, due to a real-life condition affecting the relativity of time and space, although Taylor and his crew of three have only been away a matter of months, many years have passed by on Earth. When they finally crash-land on a strange planet, their Earth clock says that by Earth's time it is the year 3978. Naturally, they are themselves only a year or so older.
So far, so good, except that in transit one of the crew, the woman, has died in her hibernation chamber. Then they step out into their new land and try to figure out where they are. No luck. Apparently, not one of the three astronauts took a basic course in astronomy before leaving Earth, because none of them thinks to look into the night sky where they might have noticed a few constellations of interest. Their ship having sunk in a lake, they begin to explore, resigned to the fact that they're probably never going back home. This seems to please Taylor no end, however, inasmuch as he admits he left Earth hating people. He says he went exploring because "I can't help thinking somewhere in the universe there has to be something better than Man. Has to be."
What he and his crew find first are primitive humans, living off the land and unable to speak. They are mute. Why a race of humans would evolve into mutes is anybody's guess, but it makes for a useful plot device. What Taylor finds next are apes that dominate the humans and treat them like animals. They round up Taylor and the others and bring them back to their ape city for medical experiments. Here we find that the apes, although able to talk and write and manufacture rifles, otherwise live a fairly primitive existence. This is because the film producers could not afford a budget big enough to give them the advanced technology described in Boulle's book. Conveniently, Taylor is shot in the neck before his capture, rendering him no more able to speak than the other mute humans on the planet. The apes, on the other hand, living in the year 3978, speak in perfect twentieth-century English. What are the odds?
Now in the ape world, Taylor meets two compassionate simians, a psychologist named Zira (Kim Hunter) and her archaeologist husband, Cornelius (Roddy McDowell, the only actor to appear in all the "Apes" films, both as Cornelius and, later, as Cornelius's son). Taylor also meets some less-than-compassionate apes, Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans) and the President of the Assembly (James Whitmore). Basically, the story line involves Taylor finally regaining his voice ("Take your stinking paws off me, you damned, dirty ape!") and trying to escape with the aid of Zira and Cornelius, who are the only ones who come to believe, at least partially, any of Taylor's story about coming from another planet.
The setup of an ape-human civilization allows the scriptwriters to make any number of social, political, and religious references in a kind of dark, satiric, metaphoric manner. But a little of this goes a long way. The ape scientists refuse to believe anything Taylor tells them; it might upset their already cherished beliefs. Racial injustice, class separation, and prejudice are obvious targets. The apes have a three-tiered hierarchy: Light-skinned orangutans at the top, the leaders; chimpanzees next, the scientists and intellectuals; and fierce-looking gorillas at the bottom, the laborers and soldiers. Humans don't even count, as they are considered beasts ("The only good human is a dead human" being a common motto among the apes). The filmmakers even go so far as to depict three apes sitting in a court of inquiry putting their hands to their eyes, ears, and mouth in the classic "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" pose. The filmmakers couldn't resist the obvious. Taylor, meanwhile, can't believe what he's gotten into. "It's a madhouse," he exclaims, "a madhouse!" Later he asks Dr. Zaius, "How in hell did this upside-down civilization get started?" and gets his answer in the film's shocking climax.
Heston is the perfect hero in appearance and background. Remember, he had played Moses and Ben Hur and El Cid, and audiences knew it. He is lean and athletic, and even if he is in a tough situation, we know he's going to find a way out. Too bad he's more brawn than brains, though. At the beginning, when he is unable to talk, we wonder why he doesn't make more of an effort than he does to communicate nonverbally. Eventually he does, but for a trained astronaut it seems a long time coming. He also tends to lose his temper easily and rushes to settle things with his fists. Maybe the apes have a point after all. It is nice, however, to see the irony of Taylor's situation: a guy who hates mankind called upon to defend it with his life.
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