THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Each film franchise has an era that reaches an end for better or worse. Some go smooth like when Star Wars' original trilogy concluded for Return of the Jedi, whereas some can be a mess like Transformers. Sadly, Pierre Boulle’s Planet of the Apes went through a phase of the latter when concluding the original arc nobody expected to unfold.
PLOT
Battle for the Planet of the Apes is told in the fictional era of 2670 AD where an orangutan lawgiver (John Huston) tells the tale of Caesar leading the ape civilization after a global nuclear war destroyed civilization for the humans. Years after the war, he would have started a family with his wife Lisa and son Cornelius, named after his father. At this point, he is trying to cultivate peace between apes and humans due to still having an allied relationship with the human MacDonald. It hasn't been an easy process due to the gorilla general Aldo constantly opposing him and wants to imprison all humans. When Aldo has a confrontation with a human teacher for speaking 'No' to him, a word apes feared when originally oppressed by humans, Caesar wonders how different of a leader he'd be if his parents were still alive. MacDonald informs him that there are archives left in the ruins of Forbidden City. Caesar goes with him and orangutan advisor Virgil (Paul Williams), only to encounter humans scarred from the radiation, led by Governor Kolp who once captured Caesar. When Caesar returns to Ape City and reports of what happened, he invites the humans from medial labor to prepare for future conflict. This bothers Aldo to the point where he and other gorillas leave the meeting. When Kolp finds Ape City, he plans to declare war on it out of fear Caesar wants to wipe out the human race for good, despite the protest from his assistants who insist on him to see reason. At night, Aldo has his own meeting with the gorillas of his intent to plot a coup against Caesar, until Cornelius overhears him from a tree. When he tries to confront the child, he hacks off the branch with a sword and it causes him to be severely wounded. The morning after, Kolp already draws first blood by killing a gorilla scouting pair. With Caesar and Lisa having a grieving absence, Aldo takes advantage to loot the armory from the orangutan overseer Mandemas (Lew Ayres) in order to defend Ape City for himself, as well as cage up MacDonald and the group of friendly humans. When Caesar confirms from his son it wasn't humans that attacked him before succumbing to his wounds, he joins the fight and orders his forces to fall back. Kolp almost kills the ape leader until he pulls a counterattack to capture those from Forbidden City. Kolp tries to escape only to be slaughtered by Aldo's forces. They almost kill the corralled humans until Caesar intervenes. Aldo considers overthrowing his leader by killing him personally, but is stopped when Virgil reveals based on MacDonald's deduction that the gorilla is responsible for Cornelius' death, breaking the law that apes shouldn't kill each other. Caesar considers revenge when pursuing him up a tree. But when the gorilla tries to defend himself, he would fall to his death. Accepting that apes are no different than the humans, he agrees to MacDonald's request on treating the corralled equally in order to co-exist in their society. When returning the weapons to the armory, he and Virgil share their hopefulness on no longer needing weapons one day. The film would end with the Lawgiver concluding the story, telling the audience of young children mixed with humans and apes that he too shares the optimism of no longer being armed to live peacefully.
THOUGHTS
Everyone has good reason to hate the Tim Burton remake for poor execution on storytelling that it led to the much better rebooted saga. However, we must remind ourselves there was a reason the franchise needed a do over to better its reputation. I honestly felt certain I was gonna enjoy this one as well after enjoying four in a row, so I was surprise that the run ended at such a good pace. Director J Lee Thompson definitely tried to maintain the magic he had the first time around but with different writers instead of Paul Dehn involved, it felt doomed from the start. Despite coming out 5 years after the first film, the makeup and costume that brings the apes to life feels cheap compared what's been done before. This is extremely upsetting because that is the biggest strength in this franchise's era. It's even worse when noticing some lip movements not linking up with the dialogue. With solid editing on the action sequences that live up to the film's title, it does share an interesting argument on fighting fire with fire worsens the situation instead of resolving it. Despite seeing the message, the pacing is feeble and it doesn't give a strong enough feeling for me to care. Roddy McDowall still has me respect Caesar as a compassionate leader and Austin Stoker does fine in filling the shoes as the brother of the previous MacDonald who is just as open minded on change and shares that to the protagonist. Those two keep me interested, but I can't say the same with the villains because they were boring as fuck. Having Severn Darden come back as Kolp would've been creative but he is written to be so tense. The guy is so traumatized of the apes' uprising that he'd actually believe Caesar would come back to a radioactive wasteland to finish them off. He's already risking his life being there so it's illogical on having a death wish like that. I mean he's just making the same mistakes as Breck did if you ask me. Seeing him so messed up in the head, it's a relief his followers had more common sense to stand down once he was killed. If you think villains couldn't get any stupider, you weren't ready for Aldo. Claude Akins has to play him so simple minded and power hungry of a figure that he considers to strike first before the enemy could. And doesn't even happen because he kills his leader's son. He even fails at covering up his tracks that he doesn't even hide the branch he chopped which MacDonald ends up finding and tells Virgil. That surprises me more than Lisa not spotting any gorillas when finding her son on the ground. On top of that, Aldo's fall was so anticlimactic I laughed because a villain who went so low should've had a grand death. With all of these elements having poor execution, I have a hard time ignoring it just to enjoy this overall. To wrap up, Battle for the Planet of the Apes is the franchise's first weak link for failing at being a grand finale. If you didn't like this at all, cheer yourself up with the rebooted saga and pretend this film didn't exist.
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