Overall Rating
  Awesome: 72.04%
Worth A Look: 18.28%
Average: 6.45%
Pretty Bad: 2.15%
Total Crap: 1.08%
3 reviews, 75 user ratings
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| Planet of the Apes (1968) |
by Jay Seaver
"Franchises generally start with a great film, and 'Apes' is no exception."
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SCREENED AT THE 2005 BOSTON SCIENCE FICTION FILM FESTIVAL: Has a grimmer, more cynical story than Planet of the Apes ever become both a major pop culture touchstone and commercial franchise? Sure, there are horror series, but even they generally end with the bad guys vanquished, even if no-one really thinks it will stick. Planet of the Apes, though, offers us a hero who thinks the worst of people and isn't often far wrong.That "hero" is George Taylor (Charlton Heston), an astronaut on a deep-space mission of exploration. Even in a state of suspended animation, the trip will take subjective years, and that's before relativistic effects multiply the objective time a hundredfold. This makes it in all likelihood a one way trip - even if they do return, civilization on Earth would likely be unrecognizable - and that suits Taylor just fine. Things go spectacularly wrong, though, and when they arrive at their destination, the sole female member of their crew is dead, and the ship is forced to crash-land. (As an aside, given the long-term, likely one-way nature of the journey even before the crash, a crew compliment of three men and one woman seems less than optimal.) Fortunately, the planet is relatively hospitable - oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, carbon-based life, human-friendly climate - except for its inhabitants: Somehow, on this world, humans are the only primates unable to speak or reason. A hunting party of intelligent apes captures Taylor and another survivor, dealing him a nasty throat injury that initially prevents him from communicating with his captors.
What makes Apes such a strong movie (besides its award-winning makeup) is its screenplay, taken from a decent novel by Pierre Boulle and adapted very well by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling. Though budget concerns forced them to jettison many of the more fantastic visual images of the source material, they home in on the book's ideas and present them in a clear, entertaining manner - and they move from concept to concept enough to keep the story moving. For the first chunk of the movie after the astronauts' arrival, we're treated to a behavioral laboratory turned on its head - with Taylor the lab animal being studied by scientist Zira (Kim Hunter). It's a reasonably straightforward satire on the scientific establishment: Zira is one of very few who is capable of seeing something other than what she expects to see, and even her investigations seem kind of useless from the perspective of the test subject. Upper administrators, represented by Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans), seem more interested in protecting the established dogma than discovering the truth. The satire segues from science to civil rights, as Taylor must prove his worth as an intelligent being to a system that doesn't recognize him as having any standing to make that claim. The apes' arguments as to why Taylor is "sub-simian" are self-contradictory and fly in the face of what is plainly apparent, but such is how prejudice works. Finally, we are given a glimpse of the apes' pre-history and why the likes of Zaius feel it must be suppressed, a good bit of science-fictional world building, leading to one of the greatest endings in movie history (which I won't include despite the fact that even those who haven't actually seen the movie probably know it).
None of these ideas are themselves revolutionary, but stitched together as they are, they form a believable world, one which feels like it exists beyond the limits of what we see. So many science-fiction stories looking to make some sort of social point seem like they would hold up, that their civilizations are created to fail without any thought to how they could persist in the first place. That there's tension between the different ape species - chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas - in this world isn't important to the main story, but is a detail that rings true.
Also crucial to making the movie work is believing in the apes. John Chambers's prosthetics were remarkable for the time and still hold up well today; he received a special Academy Award for the job even though the "Best Make-up" Oscar wouldn't be created for another thirteen years. The actors underneath this makeup are giving the challenging task of performing without being able to use small facial cues while not coming across as mugging for the camera, either. It's a fine job involving a lot of head-tilts and slightly-exaggerated deliveries. This allows Heston to be his bombastic self and still fit in. Taylor's more than a bit unpleasant, and can often be his own worst enemy, but remains somewhat sympathetic because as mean as he can be, he's got no sense of entitlement, so his capture and imprisonment is more challenge than comeuppance. Also, his wiseass comments are the ones we secretly know we'd be too terrified to make.
You can pick at the movie a little - why isn't Taylor at least a little more curious about the apes speaking English, specifically; isn't his relationship with Nova (Linda Harrison), a wild human captured at the same time, sort of on the creepy side? Explanations suggest themselves, though, and the questions aren't important enough to be addressed inside the movie.I haven't seen the sequels, and am working very hard to purge the remake from my mind. I've got an English translation of the original novel on my shelf, but I think it's heavily abridged (it's about half the length of the one listed on Amazon). That Twentieth Century Fox built this movie into a franchise isn't exactly surprising, but isn't necessary - this is a classic movie that stands just fine on its own.
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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=1653&reviewer=371
originally posted: 03/18/05 04:08:12
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2005 Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival. For more in the 2005 Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
08-Feb-1968 (PG)
DVD: 28-Mar-2006
UK
N/A
Australia
02-Jul-1968 (G)
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