Beneath The Planet Of The Apes

Rating:
Summary: Schlock--but good fun nevertheless
Review: Sort of a silly follow-up to the brilliant 'Planet of the Apes', which if you read the Boulle novel you'll realize that for once the movie is actually better than the book. But as far as 'Beneath' goes, it's a must-have for the true Apes fan--if only for the fact that Taylor (Heston) and Zaius (Evans) are still principal characters. However, the story is pretty stupid, the script even worse, and the apes are no longer frightening predators but blundering fools whose skulls are too thick for their own good. This film lacks the dark and foreboding mood of the first 'Apes' film, and instead goes for schlock. Plus, the one glaring error in the beginning (for all you true 'Apes' fanatics) is that Brent (Franciscus) actually lands on the planet in 3955, which is 18 years before Talylor (Heston) and his crew even got there (3973). So Brent would have had a lot of free time on his hands. And the end is equally as flawed, as the Earth is destroyed by the human mutants--which would seem to sound the death knell for any more sequels. But apparently Zira and Cornelius escaped in Taylor's ship before the Earth was blown to bits (although there's no hint of this throughout the whole of Beneath), which leads to 'Escape from the Planet of the Apes'.
Be that as it may--'Beneath' is still terribly good fun!!

Rating:
Summary: Not as it good as it should have been
Review: With a smaller budget, a thin plot line, and the unwelcomed absence of Roddy Mcdowall, this sequal can prove hard to watch.