Random Movie: Escape from the Planet of the Apes

Hey folks. Trying to juggle every component of Rotten Reelz has been a bit trying. I am awaiting some much needed funding for riffs, audio reviews and the standard write-up which has been neglected at this time. So today we trapse back into a Sci-Fi movie series we have not touched base in a while. A series revolving around the stories and histories of future, present and past. We come back to those damn dirty apes. This is Escape from the Planet of the Apes.

I swear woman, you listen to me before I fling poo!

Now as many of you that have seen the sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, you know the Earth was blasted into a million pieces courtesy of an the end all nuclear warhead aimed at the Earth's core. So how the hell do you continue a film after that? Why you go back in the past. Yup using a slingshot maneuver around the sun, (That old chestnut) three astronauts using Colonel Taylor's crashed ship they set back to Earth.

Now right off the bat, people have problems with this story. What did they use for a launch platform? When did they pull the ship from the waters? How did they have the technological skill, equipment and tools to get it back into working order? So on, so on. Suspend disbelief and suck it up!

Man the body odor on this kid.

With behavioral psychologist, Dr. Zira (Kim Hunter of A Streetcar Named Desire, Police Story, Love, American Style, Young Dr. Kildare, Planet of the Apes and Beneath the Planet of the Apes), archeologist Dr. Cornelius (Roddy McDowell of The Felony Squad, Planet of the Apes, 5 Card Stud, Night Gallery, A Taste of Evil, The Poseidon Adventure, The Legend of Hell House, Fright Night and Batman The Animated Series) and and physicist Professor Milo (Sal Mineo of Rebel Without a Cause, Giant, Exodus, Police Story, S.W.A.T., Harry-O and Ellery Queen Mysteries) somehow escaped before the planet was obliterated and landed in the year 1971.  With the Vietnam war on, pollution and capitalism hand in hand and Civil Rights movement dragging its feet, three intelligent apes have arrived and in Taylor's ship after it had only been 10 years since its departure.

The three transported to the Los Angeles Zoo and kept under observation by Dr. Stephanie Branton (Natalie Trundy of 77 Sunset Strip, Perry Mason, The Felony Squad, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, A Great American Tragedy and Huckleberry Fin) and Dr. Lewis Dixon (Bradford Dillman of The Way We Were, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact, Piranha, Man Outside and Hotel) in order to see what makes them tick. None of the apes exhibit intelligence nor the power of speech so they can't be poked, prodded or examined...gee not unlike what they did to Taylor. Now they are in a society that views them as freaks perhaps. Karma, she's a vicious bitch.

Hoop after hoop, the scientists can't seem to get anything out of Zira and Cornelius aside from simple puzzle solving and Zira announce she detests bananas.

That night Professor Milo is trying to calm everyone but is attacked through the bars by a mountain silverback snapping his little bones...the ones he needs to survive.

Yeesh more enemas if we don't swallow the pills.

Branton and Dixon head to the Presidential Commission to explain Zira and Cornelius' standings on how they got a hold of Taylor's ship, his present whereabouts and so on and so forth.

With a bit of good press our two chimpanzees are given a bit of luxury and trying to find their place in their new world. Meanwhile Scientific Advisor Dr. Otto Hasslein (Eric Braeden of Colossus: The Forbin Project, Rat Patrol, Lady Ice, Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law, The Power Within, Hagen, Charlie's Angels and Titanic) feels the apes are a security risk and removing them from the equation could be the very thing necessary for human survival. With nothing more than some hypothesis and a drunken confession on Zira's part of the dissection of human brains, even the President considers them a threat.

Unaware of this plot, Cornelius and Zira are living it up and also meet with a circus performer/owner Armando (Ricardo Montalban of Space Seed, The Train Robbers, Wonder Woman, The Mark of Zorro, Joe Panther, Police Story, Fantasy Island, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Spy Kids 3: Game Over) as Zira births her little bun in the oven naming him Milo after their lost colleague.

Zira and Cornelius are on the run with issues for them dead or alive but little Milo stays behind with Armando.

Are they now public enemy number one? Castro getting a free pass? Have you ever seen such a disregard for firearm safety ever?

They established in the first two movies that Taylor and company as well as Brent's crew came through a natural phenomenon of a temporal portal in space warped them through, ending up in the future so who's to say a doorway does not work the opposite route? Wibbly Wobbly, people.

What's clever about this film is showing a mirror response to humanity having issues with intelligent apes able to think, express and confer with others. They undergo everything Taylor did in the first movie and making it a brilliant parallel to how they mistreated their underdeveloped humans out of fear also allows humans to question their own morality, codes of conduct and whether or not their very souls are in the good.

With a 2.5 million budget, this film has some good humor, dramatic moments and some questions raised about our own humanity. The third of its collection but making it no less impressive.

Ach!  Ze German!