BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES (1970) Yes. This is beneath Planet Of The Apes. Okay, I'm back...I've been offline for a while because my old computer crapped out, I got a new one, and then its hard drive crapped out, so I got it replaced and lost an assload of data I was in the process of backing up, all the while, waiting for my turn to get hooked up to a real 'net connection (there's apparently quite a backlog). Nothing irreplaceable, but my fingers are getting a workout re-typing stuff. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I wouldn't trade the Space channel for anything in the world, even if about a third of each day is The X-Files. (or feels like it, anyway) It's not that they keep showing good stuff - they just keep showing stuff I'm curious about. Case in point - all the old Planet Of The Apes movies, none of which I'd seen before beyond the sort-of-classic original (I don't know if a movie can still be called a classic - no matter what the genre - with acting as bad as only Charlton Heston can give us). So, the sequels start with Beneath The Planet Of The Apes, which (after one of those annoying intros which just show the end of the previous film) is retread city for about half of its running length. Another astronaut, John Brent (James Franciscus), has crash-landed on the planet, trying to find the lost Taylor (Heston), but only finding a planetful of talking apes. For some time, he basically has the same experiences Taylor did, having his "Damn you all to hell!" moment when he finds an old subway, instead of the Statue of Liberty. But then, deep in those subways, he finds something cool - subterranean telepathic mutant humans! Twice as smart as CHUD, but only half as ugly. These humans worship a nuclear missile, with some technobabble made-up cobalt thing that means that if it's ever set off, it'll destroy all life on earth. You'd pretty much have to be a subterranean telepathic mutant religious fanatic to build something like that, wouldn't you? I wasn't clear on whether they found it from the human age, or upgraded it from something they found, or built it themselves. These humans live deep in the Forbidden Zone, which is protected by a great, elaborate series of phantasmagorical illusions which can only be penetrated by the strong-willed (and Spacehunter). But even the dunderheaded gorillas can figure out they're harmless...if it's pointed out by an orangutan. Or however the hell that's spelled. Frankly, Franciscus was as bad of an actor as Heston is, and he spends the whole movie shirtless, constantly contorting himself so that we'll see his naked torso from every possible angle. If that's a bone thrown to the extremely small female 1970 sci-fi audience, then the scene in the ape steam bath is sure to negate it all, being the hairiest, sweatiest scene ever, that didn't feature Ron Jeremy. There are a few amusing touches, like the hippie ape protesters (pretty much the only expansion of ape society we get to see), a portrayal of telepathy as (for once) something that isn't a disembodied voice-over, and of course those smashing pink battle flags of the ape army. The doomsday bomb is operated with a Superman-like series of control crystals, and the tele-mutants build cages out of cool, spike-bristled bars (and easily destroyed plaster walls - this is not a very well-built cell). And what's with all the inverted crosses everywhere? Beneath The Planet Of The Apes is interesting enough once it gets underground, and it's nice to see Cornelius and Zira (David Watson temporarily replacing Roddy McDowall, and Kim Hunter) again, but it's a shame that half the movie is wasted going over the same territory as the first film, and one gets the impression that it ends the way it does only because the writers (Paul Dehn and Mort Abrahams) couldn't think of a way to end it as memorably as the first film. For that matter, it's been a few weeks since I've seen it now (this is the second time I've had to write this review, and several others - the transition to a new computer has not been a smooth one), and I don't remember if it was Brent or Taylor who do what that pissed-off human does at the end, so if you're reading this and can tell me, by all means, do. In short - it's half of a good film. BACK TO THE R's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE