Last year, "Cornelius" and "Zira" were back in the 1970s. Now we scoot forward a few millennia and find that the Simian flu has robbed humankind of it's pets. Always in need of something to feed, comb and to take for walks, we have decided to domesticate chimps. The thing is, though, that this plan has started to spiral out of control. The animals have had just about enough of being the substitutes for our erstwhile four legged friends and are beginning to smell freedom. The governor "Brock" (Don Murray) is determined to beat down any rebellion, but hasn't factored in the appearance of "Caesar" (Roddy McDowall playing his own son!) who is the one who could make all the difference - he can talk, after all. Pursued, tortured and enslaved he must escape and rally his kind in their pursuit of freedom. This is quite a decent story because we have plenty of action and we have a baddie to focus on. For that, Murray is quite efficient at garnering our loathing as a typically megalomaniac politician. Ricardo Montalban carries through his role as circus owner "Armando" but frankly adds little to the theme that bubbles along nicely towards a denouement that shows that these former slaves are quite adept with a blow torch - who knew? It's all familiar now, and that allows us to just get on with this latest episode in a perfectly watchable season of movies.
**_Oppressed apes seek freedom in a Schutzstaffel-patterned police state_**
Twenty years after the deaths of Cornelius & Zira, their child (Roddy McDowall) has been raised by a circus owner in secret (Ricardo Montalbán). Meanwhile society has devolved into Nazi-like authoritarianism in which chimpanzees, orangutangs and gorillas are viewed as pets at best and, worse, trained servants. Don Murray, Hari Rhodes and Severn Darden are featured in key roles.
“Conquest of the Planet of the Apes” (1972) is the fourth entry in the original franchise. It’s the darkest one and is pictorially unique with the focus on despotism and modern urban structures. Don’t expect the desert wilderness or forests of the first two movies.
Regrettably, 20th Century Fox was struggling at the time and so each film in the series had a significantly lower budget than the previous. No matter how you slice it, this can be ‘felt’ while watching “Conquest,” even though I appreciate the distinctive visuals.
Yet, for me, it’s the story and characters that count and they’re just not very captivating. The next movie, “Battle for the Planet of the Apes” (the final one of the original five), had the lowest budget and, therefore, the weakest sets, but it made up for it with interesting characters and a fairly compelling story, despite the cheesy comic book tone.
This has its points of interest, for sure, but I find it the least of the original series.
It runs 1 hour, 28 minutes, and was shot at Century City, Los Angeles, with some exteriors done at the Social Sciences buildings at the University of California in Irvine, which is 51 miles to the southeast.
GRADE: C
