Apr 22, 20212 min read

Planet of the Apes film review

★★★★

Directed by: Franklin J Schaffner

Written by: Michael Wilson, Rod Serling, Pierre Boulle

Starring: Charlton Heston, Linda Harrison, Kim Hunter and Roddy Mcdowall

Throwback Film Review by: Rachel Pullen

Planet of the Apes (1968) Film Review

I was watching The Simpsons the other day, old school Simpsons at that, and I got to the episode where Troy McClure brings back his career by marrying Selma, which assists in him getting the lead role in the musical of Planet of the Apes…whereby the apes breakdance around and sing the song about Dr Zaius…good times, and it made me long for the good old days of being in a land run by apes and humans being the underdogs.

If you have never heard of Planet of the Apes then shame on you, but I shall explain it for you because I am nice like that, a bunch of astronauts are in space, of course, and they accidentally crash land on a strange planet while they were asleep, the woman is killed in her sleep so no need to worry about her, this is a bro challenge from now on.

They faff around a lot and soon meet up with a bunch of other humans, who are a little slow it seems, so much so they cannot speak, I cannot decide whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, long story short some apes come, and they capture them because they are in charge! Egad.

The apes are all super-advanced and have clothes and the humans are kept in the zoo or as slaves…oh the mirrored image of our lives, but some of the apes think the humans have potential and quickly learn that these spacemen can talk! Sadly, most of the spacemen are all dead or have had their brains touched and are now mute, so only Taylor (played by Charlton Heston) can defend the honour of his earth people.

The apes are all like. Whoa you can talk and write and you fell from the sky, but thanks but no thanks…so Taylor is banished with only apes that believe him to be of value, but it’s not long until they tug the thread and discover old Dr Zaius has known all along that the humans were there first…..and they sucked.

I won’t spoil the end because if you have not seen it, a lot of pop culture references are about to make sense, but I will tell you this, watching people in monkey costumes kiss is my fav thing ever, watching Dr Zaius waddle around in orange robes is my fav thing and watching Charlton Heston grit his teeth as some form of acting is …yeah, my fav thing ever.

To be serious though, Planet of the Apes looks amazing for its time, the details and effort gone into the costumes is amazing, the storyline is unique and revolutionary, and even though at the start the pacing is a little slow, once you get to the monkey village, it is a wild ride.

So…