Beneath The Planet Of The Apes (1970)

Credit: 20th Centuty Fox

As a friend recently joked, this movie could be called Beneath the Budget of the Planet of the Apes. 20th Century Fox actually did slash the budget in half and it shows, because while the main actors resume the ape make-up from the original, the background apes are noticeably lacking. They all appear in expressionless ape masks made on the cheap. I've also read that many sets were reused from other Fox movies.

Not only is there a noticeable lack of budget for this movie, it seems to follow the original a little too closely. Another astronaut crash-lands onto the planet in search of Taylor, and upon landing, he meets Taylor's mute female companion, Nova. Together they travel to ape city, where the new astronaut named Brent (James Franciscus) accepts his new surroundings a lot better than Taylor did. Brent doesn't really add much to the story, instead what he does is run back and forth between ape city and the desert a few times while gorillas are trailing behind. The story is lacking just like the budget for the first half of movie, while there is also a severe lack in Charlton Heston as well. It appears that he didn't want to do a sequel and only agreed if he would have a minimal role. He also donated his salary to charity which is a noble thing to do.

The movie really doesn't get interesting until we actually go "beneath" the planet and explore the Forbidden Zone, which is an area that's off-limits to apes. A creepy cult of humans is discovered to be living in the ruins of New York City, and like many sequels, this ups the ante as there are astronauts vs a gorilla army vs a new threat in these mutated foes. Just as the movie was finally becoming interesting and revealing more secrets of the apes' origin, it ends. I wanted more of it to be set inside the Forbidden Zone, but maybe that's why it's so appealing since they only give us a taste of what's actually lurking inside. The mutants' presence is actually felt before we see them, since they appear to the gorillas and Taylor in the form of illusions of fire and lightning. The first movie may have even accidentally teased these mutants because as Taylor and his crew are exploring the desert, they witness strange lightning in the sky.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes may not be as good as the original but it does attempt to top it's ending with an ironic twist. In the original film, Taylor pounds his fist in anger that "they" blew up the planet in a nuclear war yet this time it's actually he who blows it up for good.