Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes

Title: Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes (12)

Year: 1972

Running Time: 88 minutes

Director: J Lee Thomson

Cast: Roddy McDowall (Caesar), Don Murray (Breck), Ricardo Montalban (Armando) Notes: None.

Rating: 8

Thoughts:   In our near future man has embraced ape slavery. Caesar, son of Cornelius and Zira, has been hiding for twenty years and now leads a slave revolt.

The last film ended with Cornelius and Zira dead, and their son Milo (now called Caesar) secreted in the circus with a real chimpanzee mother.

For reasons unexplained the apes, which are pets and/or slaves after a plague wiped out the cats and dogs, are bigger and more intelligent. Apart from gorillas who are oddly man-sized.

,This has a focus on slavery, racial hatred and oppression and sees the leaders embracing a dystopian police state. It also hints at what could go wrong if we head in directions we shouldn't, perhaps an allegory for feelings at the time.

And that side of the film is very well played out, the humans showing despotic paranoia as they resist the apes being more than slaves, even though their observations show it is heading in one direction, with or without a super-intelligent speaking chimp to lead them.

The apes rise as one and overthrow the leaders in Spartacus-style scenes. There is some general stupidity from the humans as well as the apes, and the fighting scenes aren't the best. They also go on a bit too long. But the underlying premise is very strong.

They don't answer the obvious paradox though - although born in the present day Caesar's origins are the future, so how can he now lead the rising that will lead to that future?

This is a well played out dystopian tale that only briefly loses its way.