Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes

• I actually decently enjoyed this entry in the Apes franchise, and I was moderately surprised how good it was. It certainly wasn’t the best movie of all of them, and it has its low points. One of my biggest critiques was the story. The idea itself of the apes being slaves, and then revolting against the humans, is really good, and obviously influenced ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’. I guess technically, this is a prequel to ‘Planet of the Apes’ (1968). It sets up the events that took place that caused the downfall of humanity, and the rise of the apes. However, the first hour of the movie feels extremely slow, and very repeated. What I mean is that, to me, it kind of goes in circles and takes awhile to get to the point. But it does a decent job of establishing who Caesar is and his significance not only to the Apes storyline, but the future of the Apes movies themselves. It was cool to see Roddy McDowall play him, which makes sense. He basically just has to play Cornelius, but less sophisticated. It also makes it believable that Caesar is Cornelius’s son. My last two quick points are the makeup and the final act. The makeup was good just like the other movies, although it is starting to get a little old to look at. The final act was very strong, with action scenes that were actually kind of fun. They were cheesy, but fun. Overall, this movie wasn’t too bad, but not as good as the first two Apes movies. I’d probably recommend it to most sci-fi/Apes fans.