Time of the Apes

TIME OF THE APES (known as "Sara no gundan" in its native Japan) is a shoddily-produced sci-fi/fantasy yarn apparently edited from an unaired television series. I would say that it's trying to cash in on the success of PLANET OF THE APES, except that it was made about twenty years too late.

The pretentiously overcomplicated storyline involves a woman and two children who accidentally freeze themselves in cryogenic chambers (that's right-- they *ACCIDENTALLY* freeze themselves!) and are transported to an unknown period of time where hostile apes rule. Several ludicrous, time-wasting subplots seem to pop up out of nowhere, mostly involving imprisonment, booby traps, and flying saucers. Trying to actually make sense of the onscreen bedlam is a useless and unrewarding task, so just sitting back and enjoying the silly costumes and awful dubbing is highly recommend.

Fortunately, TIME OF THE APES is extremely difficult to come across (only bootlegs and out-of-print VHS transfers exist in the US), but if you ever get the chance to see it featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, you're in for a real treat. It has got to be one of the funniest episodes ever.

This was appalling. My neighbour made me watch it and believe me I begged him to turn it off!

What have we got here? A totally disjointed Japanese-made film poorly dubbed into English.

Nothing really made sense and to be honest I have no idea what the thing was about, except to say a woman and some annoying kids get trapped in an alternate reality where apes rule the planet. (No, I didn't seen Charlton Heston ride past crying, "You maniacs, you blew it up!")

It's so bad, I recommend you get a copy for when unwanted visitors drop by. "Yeah, sure you can come in. I'm watching Time of The Apes. Take a seat!" Guaranteed they will leave within 15 minutes!

As a matter of fact, I'm looking for a copy of this film myself.

This film is very boring and somewhat confusing. It centers around a woman, a kid, and an "Indiana Jones" type character named Johnny. They are cryogenically frozen and awaken in a land of where apes rule the world. (Sound familiar?) Well of course they are captured by the apes and Johnny (who acts like a complete jerk) tries to free them, etc... The movies only interesting character is a young monkey who helps the humans, and even the monkey is annoying. The only way this movie should be seen is along with the *Mystery Science Theater 3000* gang. The episode, number 306, appeared in their third season and was hilarious.

There are bad movies, very bad movies and horrible movies. This movie goes a step beyond even those classification, Plan Nine from Outer Space bad. The story is about three present day humans who just happen to be in cryogenic chamber when an earthquake a underground research center. When they come to its five hundred years in the future and apes have taken over the planet. Any plot similarities between Time of the Apes and Planet of the Apes is completely intentional although it seems like cinema heresy to compare the two films. There is a flying saucer that keep appearing for no apparent reason and an ape shoot out that doesn't make any sense. All of these plot holes stem from the fact this movie is edited from a Japanese TV series that was never aired. I will not give away the ending, but it is the sort of thing that could result in a failing grade in most high school creative writing courses.

I think I can describe this wretched film in one word: "HUH??"

I cannot recall ever seeing a movie as crappy as this one. I will admit that the English translation may have been reason for horrific dialogue, but I cannot recall any semblance of plot, or storyline. Watching Johnny and Carolyn's madcap romps running from simian masked men with the crappiest makeup in cinema history, my brain cells began to implode one by one as I tried to find the answers to so many questions I had about this film. You will get dizzy (especially the pre-Matrix rotoscope camera shots towards the end), nauseous, and possible amnesia may set in after this tour de crap which also includes an adorable weird ape girl name Pepy(????). Good way to experience temporary insanity.