Conquest of the Planet of the Apes

MOVIE REVIEW OF Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) PG

Cast
Director:	j. lee thompson	Runtime: 1hrs 28min ( 88min)
caesar	.....	roddy mcDowall
breck	.....	don murray
lisa	.....	natalie trundy
macDonald	.....	hari rhodes
inspector kolp	.....	severn darden
busboy	.....	lou wagner
commission chairman	.....	john randolph
mrs. riley	.....	asa maynor
hoskyns	.....	h. m. wynant
aldo	.....	david chow
frank	.....	buck kartalian
policeman #1	.....	john dennis
policeman #2	.....	paul comi
auctioneer	.....	gordon jump
announcer	.....	dick spangler
zelda	.....	joyce haber
ape with chain	.....	hector soucy
armando	.....	ricardo montalban

PLOT SUMMARY

It is North America in the year 1991, twenty years after Cornelius and Zira traveled back from the future and were killed for being talking apes. Apparently, their son Milo, later to be called Caesar, was not shot and killed as was indicated at the end of the previous movie.

Instead, the circus owner Armando (Ricardo Montalban) has been harboring him all these years and keeping him safe in his circus.

In the meantime, the world has turned ugly. A plague was introduced to Earth from space in the early 1980s. This plague wiped out the entire population of dogs and cats. Humans were immune, but this left them with no housepets (what about gerbils?). Discovering the learning capabilities of apes, the humans adopted them as the new housepet. However, they also adopted them as slaves. So far as to start using them for tasks that took over jobs such as waiters and deliverymen.

Ape Management was the term used to describe the tortuous means by which apes were trained to become the slaves of the people.

Armando sneaks Caesar into the city on a field trip to distribute flyers about his circus. Through a turn of events, Caesar is lost, and Armando is held by the governer on suspicion of owning the missing talking ape (apparently illegal).

Caesar sees proof of the direction in which the human captors have taken ape labor, and leads a revolution to have apes take over in an ironic switch of power and dominance.

TECH INSPECTION

Although I found Conquest to be one of the better Planet of the Apes movies (and I would expect nothing less from an associate producer such as Frank Capra, Jr.), as it does make a bold political statement, I do have my share of criticisms...

Among the most obvious is the use of awkward dialogue. This is first and most apparent in Armando's character. The writers left it to this character to bear the burden of relaying backstory for viewers who may have missed Escape from the Planet of the Apes and for the events since then. These parts were written as though we were taking a break from the movie for Storytime with Armando.

However, Ricardo Montalban pulled it as much out of the gutter as he could have possibly been expected to. Good job there.

Also, as shipments of apes are brought from other countries, they are announced with banners such as 507 I for Indonesia. You would think an alpha-numeric code would be something that would not have to be expanded in order to be explained or understood. Shipment 507 I should be self-explanatory.

I have a feeling that this sequel was not planned ahead of time. It felt as though the resurfacing of Caesar (Milo) was a struggle to conceive for this movie. We all saw the wrapped up child shot several times in the last movie. And the explanation is rather weak in this one.

Ricardo Montalban and Roddy McDowall both return in this movie (although McDowall plays his former character's son), which does nothing but enhance the quality of the picture. And that's probably what added another meow to my personal rating.

Ironically, Caesar's final soliloquy is a forshadowing of the last Planet of the Apes movie and of the events of the original film (which chronologically have not yet happened).

Important: Note the signs of and allusions to Nazi Germany that are interjected in this movie.

QUOTES
Finally, a short list of quotes I think are worth repeating. You may recognize some, but these are my own picks, not ones that are particularly famous:

• Caesar: I understand, Mr. MacDonald. Yes, I am the one they are looking for.
• MacDonald But we don't do that...to humans.
• Breck: Don't plead with them, you idiot!
• Breck: This will be the end of human civilization, and the world will belong to a planet of apes!
• Breck: When we hate you, we're hating the dark side of ourselves.

Here is my personal rating of this movie. This rating is out of ten meows.
⁸/₁₀

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