Review of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) by Jagt P — 16 Nov 2013

Another year later and another $800,000 less in the budget. In the previous film, Cornelius relates a bit of what they know from the future about the history of apes coming to dominate the planet. He says a plague kills all household dog and cat pets, then humans start keeping apes as pets, and since their intelligence is much greater, humans begin giving them chores of cooking, cleaning, and running errands.

In a century, apes begin to recognize human vocal commands and humans treat apes like slaves, then one intelligent ape leads a revolution by saying "No" to his slave master. This is basically that violent story.

This movie takes place in 1991. This is how people in the 70s imagined that the 90s might look. It appears that twenty years have past between the previous film and this one, so, evidently, a lot less time is needed for apes to develop these skills.

Ricardo Montalban's circus owner, Armando, doesn't look that much older, but the intelligent baby chimp has grown and is called Caesar before the Governor lets him pick a name for himself. Roddy McDowall plays Caesar, Cornelius's own son.

We may assume humans have stopped treating people with different skin colors as inferior, but this future version of the 90s still appears quite sexist. The hateful values spouted by white supremacists are heard from leaders who might be called human supremacists in this sci-fi adventure, since they have enslaved the Orangutangs, Gorillas, and Chimpanzees.

I recently read about how Bonobos, another member of the family of great apes, were once misunderstood to be pygmy chimpanzees, but are now recognized as a separate, more gentle, possibly more intelligent species.

This series straightened out a couple misconceptions: that apes are vegetarians, and that apes and monkeys are not the same. I wonder if the reboot of the series will make use of more ape characters/species.

Natalie Trundy gets in the ape make-up this time as a girl chimp who becomes close to Caesar. Not being able to speak, her role is not much better than Linda Harrison as Nova in the first movie. Don Murray is Governor Breck, who continues Dr.

Hasslein's apehunt for the talking chimp who means the downfall of mankind. Severn Darden is one of the governor's enforcers. Hari Rhodes is MacDonald, an adviser to the governor, who sympathizes with the apes' plight.

The futuristic sets and chaotic riot scenes are well done, even though, without the CGI of modern action movies, the fight choreography could be more adrenaline charged. You root for the slave uprising.

You want to see the conquest happen. Caesar's last minute note of peace can hopefully lead the world down a different path than the one seen in the first two movies.