Monday 5 September 2016

Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

Genre

Action | Sci-Fi

Director

Don Taylor

Country

USA

Cast

Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Bradford Dillman, Natalie Trundy, Eric Braeden, William Windom, Sal Mineo, Albert Salmi, Jason Evers, John Randolph, Harry Lauter, M. Emmet Walsh, Roy Glenn, Peter Forster, Ricardo Montalban

Storyline

Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) and Zira (Kim Hunter) flee from their planet and travel back through time landing on late 20th Century Earth where they are received with fascination and fear from the people they meet.

Opinion

Even though "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" wasn't a worthy sequel, it did have some good. "Escape from the Planet of the Apes" is pretty much just a stupid excuse to bring back to the screen those talking apes. With a gleam of depth.

And once again the main problem is the plot. While the beginning is quite interesting, having Cornelius, Zira and Milo escaping their doomed planet only to land on 70's Earth and being locked up and studied by humans. And basically "Planet of the Apes" happens, reversed the circumstances. After that, the storyline gets quite dumb. Established they come from the future, the apes are treated as human, but not just normal humans, but like they were the most important people in the world.

As dumb as it gets, the film somehow manages to address quite well social issues that were going on in the world a that time. Right when racial segregation was ending, this film managed to deliver a powerful message about race relations and prejudice, stating that we should accept those who are different from us and give them a chance.

The film's humorous tone doesn't work very well in my opinion. Considering the issues the film address, it felt quite inappropriate not the way Cornelius and Zira were treated by everyone, but the fact that the filmmakers tried to make it funny. I'm not sure if you know what I mean.

Finally, there aren't many special effects which is weird considering it's a science fiction flick, but it's totally okay because this story doesn't require them.

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