Movie Review: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972): The fourth film in the Apes series continues to build from the timeline established in the third film, set presumably a decade or two after baby Milo was born and raised as a circus ape. We pick things up with the prophecy coming true: All of the world's cats and dogs have died (as a result of a plague brought to the Earth by, guess who, the space chimps) (no no, not the stars of the ultra-successful film Space Chimps) (nooo, not the stars of the sequel either, Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back). Apes have been introduced as the pets of choice, except they're not just pets. They seem to do all sorts of jobs, including cleaning, waiting on tables and the like. They're not happy about it either. I'm just guessing that bit.

More amusingly, there appears to be only two attires for the apes in these films. Half of them wear green tracksuits like hairy Eastern-European gangsters from Grand Theft Auto IV. The other half wear bright orange jumpsuits, as if they've all received ASBOs and as a result all have to simultaneously pick litter. The one to buck the trend here is Milo, who later adopts the name of Caesar. Raised by Ricardo Montalban (obviously, he's not gonna miss out on that trend), he's been hiding his extra intelligence for his entire life. When he realises he can't keep the secret forever in the face of humans abusing his mates, things go tits up and there's CONFLICT.

This film did very little for me. It wasn't overly bad but it just didn't represent much of a step forward. The main villain isn't that much different to the main villain from the first film, the ape sympathisers aren't much different either, and this time instead of two strong leads we've just got Roddy McDowell on his own. It just felt like we were treading over the same ground, making this film largely unnecessary. The eventual ape uprising comes about after Caesar turns into a sort of primate Terminator, complete with a sweet leather jacket at the start of the film, and that's amusing, but it's all pretty soulless. McDowell has a good go at it, as he has in all of the films he's featured in over the course of the series, but that isn't good enough to make this anything worth watch. One thumb down.