Another astronaut lands
on the planet after following in the path of Charlton Heston's
character. In keeping with this he essentially does everything we saw
Heston do in the first movie. But shitter. Because he's not Charlton
Heston. Meanwhile the apes decide to march into the Forbidden Zone to
kill whatever shit happens to be living there. I'm not sure why. I
guess there's no point giving a monkey a gun if you're not then going
to make him shoot something. Predictably, what is living there is a
small coven of psychic humans that worship a nuclear bomb. So
obvious! Anyway, shit goes down.. Heston sets the nuke and the film
ends with everybody and everything on the planet dead. I literally
have no fucking clue where they're going to go with the sequel.
What's
the subtext?
Well, if man's love of nuclear explosives and the ultimate destruction of the world is a clue, then I'm
going to suggest there's an anti-nuclear bomb message here. Also, a
group of student apes are protesting against the actions of their
soldiers in a not-so-subtle reference to the war in Vietnam. I didn't
look close enough but if one of the apes signs didn't say “Enough
Of This Gorilla War” then I hope the person responsible never
worked in Hollywood again.
What's the best bit
of the film?
Without
a doubt it's the scene in which the psychic underground humans are
worshipping a nuclear bomb and singing hymns that quite literally
contain the lyrics, “Almighty Bomb who destroyed all devils and
created angels, behold his glory”. They then all rip off their
faces that turn out to have been masks, revealing themselves to be a
gang of skinless, veiny mutants. They literally look like a bell-end
with eyes. Then they sing “All creatures great and small”.
What's the worst bit
of the film?
I
suppose it's the entire first half in which we're treated to a
complete retread of the first movie with James Franciscus as The Second Astronaut to Land, and presumably a part-time Charlton Heston
look-a-like. Also.. some of the ape make-up isn't quite as good in this
movie. There are at least a couple of crowd scenes in which half of
the audience like they they're performing some sort of monkey tribute
to Leatherface.
What's the best
line?
As a hardcore
misanthrope, it's pretty hard for me to find a line that I enjoyed
much more than...
“The only good human
is a dead human”
Is it actually worth
a watch?
Did
you read that shit about the psychic mutants? Yes... it's worth a watch!
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