Planet of the Apes Review

I am of the mind that no matter how good Planet of the Apes is nothing would have come of it had the first film not been released in America during the 1960s, a time of massive social upheaval that sought to throw off traditional American standards held by the previous generation in favor of... well, nothing in particular. The film is fairly unsubtle about it's desire to appeal and pander to the beliefs and aesthetic tastes of a late 60s young adult American audience, who were more than likely looking for rebellious media that their parents definitely wouldn't approve of. Thus, when they heard about a film with an anti-fundamentalist message told through the imagery of monkeys, gun fights and women in animal-skin bikinis they turned it into a huge hit and ended up unintentionally launching a franchise.



Just in case you've been in a five decade long coma and are unfamiliar with the franchise the setup is that an astronaut named Taylor (Charlton Heston) crash lands out of hypersleep onto a planet where a race of talking apes are the dominant species on the planet and all humans act like and are considered to be mindless animals. His compatriots are killed and he's forced to work with a scientist couple against the obtuse religious leaders of the apes society who refuse to acknowledge there was any possible way for Taylor to exist outside of their religious text. Oh, and did I mention that the scientist couple is working on evolution research that the leaders constantly try to delegitimize through religious text and if you thought that the commentary in WALL-E was too subtle than this is the film for you?



Despite the enormous amount of critical acclaim and street cred it's earned over the last 50 years it's important to remember that Planet of the Apes is essentially a $5 million B-movie. It has sets that are sparsely detailed, social commentary about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the crotch (one of the characters actually says the line "You can't trust the older generation"), cinematography that only seems to half care about shot composition, over-the-top acting and Charlton Heston in a Tarzan diaper. However, it must also be remembered that that cheap aesthetic is partially why it caught on as well as it did. Sleazy b-movies and tacky drive-in films were a popular choice of entertainment among the youth and film students of the hippie generation due to the fact that they were often violent, tastelessly sexual and, most importantly, subversive against many of the values held by their audience's more conservative parents. Planet of the Apes might not have been either of the former, but it was certainly the latter, and that along with the now iconic ape makeup drew a huge crowd of rebellious hippies.



However, let's ditch the interesting historical context and have a look at the film on its own merits. The acting, as stated before, its standard B-movie hamming but it's kind of endearing. In a movie populated by disturbing monkey masks, blatantly obvious satire and ridiculous zoom-in shots you'd almost be disappointed if the actors were told to give a subtle performance especially in regards toward the actors portraying the apes who have to work through prosthetics that might as well have been a mask.



Speaking of the ape makeup, even though I can appreciate how next-level it was for its time I can't help but notice how poorly it's dated. To be fair, there are sometimes the actors can work through their masks and I can almost believe that I'm watching an actual ape. However, most of the time they're unconvincing especially on the many occasions when the mouths don't move.



The dialogue is either on the nose or over-the-top, but with the B-movie aesthetic it 1) is to be expected and 2) barely matters because that's how we got so many iconic lines.



Planet of the Apes is tacky and just a little stupid, but it's the fun kind of tacky and the endearing kind of stupid. If you can tune your brain to an ironic frequency you can enjoy the terrible set and costume design and cheesy dialogue. And even without the ironic enjoyment it's it's almost inspiring to see a B-movie try its hardest to deliver an important message through the vocabulary of bad dialogue and horrible ape makeup. It's does come highly recommended, but with a hefty dose of irony recommended.