Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

The original The Planet of the Apes laced its stock science fiction tropes with campy humor, gripping action, and then-impressive special effects. The first sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, offers more of the same, but it also attempts to foreground its social agenda, resulting in a film that, like many sci-fi classics, says more about the Cold War than about the far future. The indelible finale of the original movie encapsulated 25 years worth of nuclear anxiety into a single image; the sequel spends much of its 90 minutes elaborating that point. This is a popcorn flick, but it's also a message movie, one whose moral tone is more akin to the creature features of the 1950s than to that of Stanley Kubrick's stylized futures. Nevertheless, the script is rife with contemporary references, right down to the scenes of antiwar protesters staging a simian sit-in. Feminism had not yet gone mainstream, though, so the gender roles of even the heroes, both ape and human, are remarkably dated. So are the special effects, which expand on the makeup-based imagery of the first film with lots of sound stage set pieces. Evidently believing that the novelty of their premise had been exhausted by the end of the first installment, the filmmakers turned the focus away from the ape characters and toward a host of new perils plucked straight from an episode of the original Star Trek: pontificating mutants, psychic overlords, and sinister illusions. Charlton Heston, star of the first film, allowed himself to be relegated to a climactic cameo, leaving Linda Harrison and newcomer James Franciscus to run through the paces. Beneath the Planet of the Apes aimed to turn a gimmicky hit into a sustainable franchise, and with Saturday-matinee ham-fistedness, it valiantly succeeded. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide