A Batalha do Planeta dos Macacos

The Ape uprising has taken place so many years ago, and now in 2003 (by my figuring) Earth has went back to a primitive state in the new era of Apes and Humans living together, yet not equal.

Roddy McDowall reprises his role as Caesar in this one. He is more benevolent than in "Conquest..." in that he is mellowed out and Humans are not as evil as he visioned them in the last film. McDonald is his Human companion and voice of reason when the anti-Human sentiment comes to his mind. As in the end of "Conquest...", McDonald is the Human advocate for mercy for the Human race.

After the Ape uprising an offscrean nuclear war took place, demolishing the big cities of Humanity. Apes are now the superior race, yet rely on them to teach the Apes grammar and such. The Humans are subservient to the Apes, yet under Caesar's rule, they are given latitude when they inadvertently revert to the days of old (when the word "no" is uttered by a Human to an Ape, a grave misdeed in these times). A general by the name of Aldo seems to harbor visions of seizing control of the Ape civilization and directing it in a way much different than Caesar.

Caesar verbalizes his wish to have heard some words of wisdom from his long deceased parents, Cornelius and Zira. McDonald says it is so since the parents were under surveillance upon their coming to 1970's Earth, and that filmed records exist as to the revelations about the future of the Earth. Caesar immediately organizes a party of himself, Virgil, and McDonald to visit the Forbidden City (which is radioactive due to the fallout of the nuclear war) to learn about his parents. They go to the archives and find the records they were seeking. Yet meanwhile, there was a group of survivors that lived in the forbidden city that found out that Caesar was there. These humans were terribly disfigured due to the vast nuclear fallout. They recognize Caesar right away and want to gain vengeance for their fate. Caesar and his entourage flee from the Forbidden City once the Human Mutants go after them.

Anything past this will spoil the ending. This was decidedly the last of the POTA's films, and they left an open ending as to whether Humans and Simians can live together in peace.

A point raised by Caesar's enemy, Kolp (Darden in a mustache-twirling snidely elegant turn at maddened villainy), in this 5th and final Apes film. But a king usually has more than one enemy, as Caesar finds, to his grief. A predictable and mostly logical follow-up to the previous "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes," this one, like "Beneath the Planet of the Apes," stresses sci-fi action rather than any deep themes related to slavery or culture shock. Several years after a nuclear war, we find a surprisingly peaceful yet primitive village occupied by both apes and humans, governed by chimp Caesar (McDowall), who began a revolution in the previous film, as a young radical. Now much older - either about 10 or 30 years older, depending on various sources - he projects a benign fatherly personality. It's not quite paradise: though not the slaves as apes were previously, humans have shifted to 2nd-class citizens, despite an image of equality, and tension escalates due to local bully gorilla Aldo (Akins - 'call me by my proper rank, General, huh!'). Then Caesar himself opens the door to other possible problems by visiting a nearby nuked city (obviously the same one from the previous film). There, the human governor from "Conquest..." has been replaced by his security chief, Kolp, who was bad enough as 2nd in command - now he's bored just sifting through the rubble with his few mutated followers - time to work off the doldrums and teach a clever ape how to show respect.

This entry is generally regarded as the worst of the 5 films, if most fans had to pick one, but it's not a complete waste by comparison. There really is a battle at the end, a mini-war between the invading mutants and the village - but then the final confrontation between Caesar & Aldo is slow going. This film is almost like a precursor to all of those post holocaust sci-fi pieces in the eighties ("Steel Dawn," etc.). The biggest weakness is that nothing really new is added to the saga. The new character, Virgil (Williams), for example, is a genius orangutan, but he's a retread of the genius chimp from "Escape..." What this film does, really, is bring things full circle for the 5-film saga, though not in a very creative way. As with the previous film, "Conquest...", events that should occur over the course of decades or centuries are depicted in the span of days. The filmmakers got all the old costumes from the first 3 films out of mothballs and outfitted the apes here the same way, against logic. The mutated humans from the bombed out city are the ancestors of the mutants we've seen in "Beneath..." - they even show the alpha-omega bomb which, though almost detonated here, remains as is until it supposedly destroys everything in two millennium. However, a prologue and epilogue set about 600 years from now with the orangutan Lawgiver (Huston) shows that the future is not set, so now we're left guessing. This movie was followed by the short lived TV series, which took place about a thousand years in the future.

One decade after a worldwide series of ape revolutions and a brutal nuclear war among humans, Caesar must protect survivors of both species from an insidious human cult and a militant ape faction alike.

Screenwriters John William Corrington and Joyce Hooper Corrington were brought in after the success of their film "The Omega Man", although prior to that neither one of them had written any science fiction films and, indeed, Joyce Carrington later admitted they had never seen any of the Apes films prior to being hired to write the script for "Battle".

Roger Ebert gave the film a negative review, stating, "Battle looks like the last gasp of a dying series, a movie made simply to wring the dollars out of any remaining ape fans." As usual, Ebert is spot on. This feels nothing like an "Apes" movie at all, and the continuity starts to get a little strange. Even ignoring the paradox of the time loop, there is no explanation of how the apes became able to speak and so forth. If Caesar had a mate and this was 500 years in the future it might make sense, but apes simply do not have the ability to speak!

A limp way for the original franchise to finish.

Its predecessor, 'Conquest of the Planet of the Apes', was a weak entry too but remained watchable, though 'Battle for the Planet of the Apes' kinda straddles the other side as it's uninteresting. I didn't dislike it and it is very short at around 82 minutes, which helps. Roddy McDowall is the pick of the cast, though even his performance feels weary at this point.

A 'strong' 2½* rating from me, if such a thing exists. It was the right time for them to end this (very good, all in all) series.

So the final entry in the Planet of the Apes series takes liberties with the timeline and the plot wanders through other prior installments, but I feel the movie delivers a degree of pathos seldom seen in a sequel. The bookend scenes involving the Lawgiver, John Huston in heavy make up, speaking to a group of schoolchildren--apes and humans--tie up the saga nicely, leaving open the future for more sequels.(Tim Burton in his dreadful remake should have filled in the blanks instead of "reimagining" a different world of apes. Only my opinion.) Things I like include the character Mandemus, keeper of the armory(Caesar's conscience), the trek to the radioactive city, Caesar's viewing of his dead parents in the Hall of Records and the final ambiguous shot of the movie. The money allocated to Leonard Rosenman's impressive score was well spent. The pop singer Paul Williams display a deft touch for acting in his debut. Try and catch this screen gem on Fox Movie Channel and you will be treated to additional scenes involving the always looming doomsday bomb. And special praise to J.Lee Thompson for delivering more with less.