Le Secret de la planète des singes

"Beneath" is a film that epitomizes the best and worst that a sequel to a masterpiece, as "Planet Of The Apes" was, could be. For me, it is the most watchable of the sequels only because it's the only one that stays in the familiar territory established by the first film. But oh that ending....

I really can not understand why the heck Richard Zanuck allowed Charlton Heston to talk him into going with that downer ending that has already been referred to by others. The only reason why Heston pushed it wasn't because it made for good cinema but because he wanted to singlehandedly see to it that he never have to do another Apes sequel again. It's a pity that Heston never realized that the best sequel story one could have explored was what happened to Taylor and Nova afterwards, and could have made for some equally compelling drama as the first film did. To me, the main appeal of the first film wasn't the Ape society, it was the character of Taylor and his fascinating odyssey from misanthrope to defender of the species, only to see his earlier feelings borne out in the shock ending. The question that should have been addressed next in a sequel was, what would Taylor do now that he realized he was on Earth? What other things were there to discover on the planet? (Heck, you could have easily made a sequel movie without the apes returning, as far as I'm concerned!) Alas, because of the plot device imposed by this film (and Heston's inability to realize what a good thing he might have had going for himself), the rest of the series had to veer off into what was for me, a more uninteresting story line focusing on the Apes and their inevitable rise to power.

Plot holes and depressing ending notwithstanding, "Beneath" is still worth watching to see the traces of what could have been a great film that are there. The mutant storyline and their dwellings underneath the remains of New York still has an irresistible viewing quality to it. I do not recommend watching it in tandem with its magnificent predecessor though, because that's only going to make you more angry about the ending of this film.

In terms of follow ups to surprisingly great films that should never have had a sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes is almost the exact kind of movie that it should have been to come after Planet of the Apes. It expands the world of the film in a new and interesting direction, continues the feeling of weirdness that helped the original, and even moves the thematic ideas of the original into even darker directions. However, to even get to that the movie repeats the original, almost beat for beat, in its first half, introducing a new, not terribly necessary, protagonist, and spends so little time actually establishing the conflict that defines the second half that it all feels like wasted potential more than anything else.

The problems originated from the fact that Charlton Heston gave a flat refusal to starring in the sequel, eventually being talked into working on the film for two weeks total as long as his character of Taylor died. So, the writer and director decided that the best way forward was to give us a new astronaut, Brent, who had followed Taylor into deep space and ended up in the same place at the same time. That means that all of the revelations about the planet need to happen again to a character who's a full movie behind the audience. He finds Nova, follows her to Ape City where he discovers the upside down nature of the place, meets Zira and Cornelius for reasons, and then escapes again. At the movie's halfway point, he ends up in an abandoned New York City subway station and has his revelation in much smaller and less visually impressive environs than Taylor got at the end of the previous film.

Along with this action is some really ill-defined brewing conflict between the apes led by Dr. Zaius and General Ursus, a gorilla, and the Forbidden Zone. There's a line of dialogue about how scouts had gone missing which seems to be the sole motivation for taking an entire army into the Forbidden Zone, and it's thin stuff. The thing is that Dr. Zaius spoke in ways, at the end of the first movie, that seemed to indicate that the ruling class of the ape society knew a lot more about history and the Forbidden Zone than they told everyone else. It would have been easy enough to make the connection that Zaius knew of the mutant humans under the ruins of New York City, but not in any great detail, and assumed that Taylor was part of them, creating the argument that the mutants were expanding into ape territory, providing the impetus for the entire action. As it is, we spend so little time with them and so much time with Brent discovering what the audience already knows, that it all ends up as thin as possible.

The movie doesn't even really feel like a sequel until the second half once Brent and Nova go deeper into New York City through the subway. It feels like that's the actual beginning of the movie, and it should have been Taylor going in instead of this new character Brent. And the second half of the film has a bunch of stuff that I love. The mutants who worship an atomic bomb? Yes, please. I love that. They're wearing masks that look like real skin to hide their mutated selves beneath? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I love it. The religious ritual that's held in the remnants of St. Patrick's Cathedral and uses Catholic prayers with bomb and fallout replacing any mention of God? I love it even more. It's the exact kind of twisted stuff that 60s and 70s science fiction excelled at. Another thing that that era of science fiction loved was nihilism (which made Star Trek stand out because it was hopeful in a sea of nihilistic science fiction), and the movie ending with Taylor blowing up the world because screw it, it all sucks, is something I love.

Not everything in the second half is great, though. The use of Brent requires a late introduction to Taylor that feels out of place. There's a fight scene that doesn't really work for me. And, most important of all, the conflict between ape and mutant was so thinly established that when the gorilla army shows up and attacks, it feels really empty. There are some surprisingly great visuals here like when the gorilla army is marching into St. Patrick's with the sole remaining mutant standing before the golden doomsday bomb, but they're empty because, again, the conflict itself is empty.

And, to top it off, I think that the inclusion of Brent wasn't just unnecessary from a storytelling perspective, but it was unnecessary from a production perspective as well. Some judicious use of body doubles and scheduling could have gotten Charlton Heston to carry his part of the movie completely in just a couple weeks of filming. The thing is that the ape society stuff needed to stand on its own without a human involved, having Taylor get lost in the mutant city early, spending time with Dr. Zaius to convincingly build the conflict with the mutants in the Forbidden Zone, and then leaning into the conflict as a continuation of the damnation of humanity that is the first film. I think it could have worked really quite well if there wasn't a need to remake the film unnecessarily in the first half.

Oh well, it's a mixed bad, but it definitely has stuff that works. Unfortunately, that stuff is outnumbered by the more mediocre material that supports it. It's far from one of the worst sequels to a great film ever made. It has too many interesting ideas and visuals to dismiss it completely, but it could have been better.

This first sequel to the '68 science fiction hit has all the markings of something rushed into production. There was no time to craft a story which explores the truly interesting possibilities of astronaut Taylor's continuing odyssey on a future world turned upside down. The story could have and should have concentrated on the evolving struggle between the ruling class of apes and the backward humans. Instead, the filmmakers created a new threat for this film, a secret society of human mutants living underground. They show up in the 2nd half of this feature and, in prolonged scenes, show off their telepathic powers in torturing the heroes. The heroes, in this case, are another astronaut (Franciscus) who followed Taylor's trajectory to this other planet and Taylor himself (Heston, reprising his role briefly). Wow, what an original concept - another astronaut, who, in an accelerated version of the first film's events, also finds Ape City, encounters two sympathetic chimps, gets captured and escapes. Are we watching some kind of a repeat?

The quick pace of this picture is probably its best aspect; this stresses action. However, the pace is so fast that some crucial points in geography are sacrificed: getting to the Forbidden Zone from Ape City is just a short walk in a tunnel for some, while others have to trudge for days overhead. In a slight nod to the satirical aspects of the original film, we do get to see religion being mocked (the original satirized the social & political anchors of a community). But, it's not a very subtle jab. The mutants profess to be more intelligent than either the heroes or the apes, which they seem to prove with their advanced mind powers, but they spend most of their time worshiping a nuclear bomb, chanting silly songs - they really picked a strange form of idolatry, but maybe they're simply crazed. This movie throws together a lot of science fiction concepts but the resulting brew is rather bland. It's a decent action piece, not much more.

Franciscus shows he is no Heston; he overacts in most of his scenes, as if he had no clue on how to depict a man realizing where he's actually landed, but then again, he wasn't the skipper on this 2nd ship (the lead officer dies soon after they crash-land); we're not watching a leader but a follower try to carry the picture. I was struck by how Heston towered over him in their brutal fight scene. McDowall is also missing; his role of Cornelius is played by actor Watson. Evans & Gregory are pretty good as the ape leaders but whoever stuck them in ape suits for the sauna scene should have thought about it a few more minutes. This movie ends everything on a grotesquely conclusive note, but they managed to find a way to continue the story in "Escape From the Planet of the Apes."

I guess you could say that this first sequel to PLANET OF THE APES is a nostalgic pleasure for me; I got hooked on it as a child and while I still think it's an interesting followup to the original, as an adult I'm naturally more aware of its flaws. Yet it still works out as a good adventure film; less of a cerebral experience like PLANET OF THE APES, and more of a comic book story.

James Franciscus plays astronaut Brent, sent along the same trajectory as Taylor's (Charlton Heston's) old ship in an effort to rescue him. He crash-lands in the same vicinity as his friend, and goes through a similar nightmare when he comes to discover that the planet he's stranded on is dominated by intelligent, talking apes with a decidedly low opinion of mankind. General Ursus (James Gregory) is a war-hungry gorilla leader who's anxious to investigate strange unearthly occurrences in the Forbidden Zone with the aid of the ever-skeptical scientist Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans in a reprisal of his role from Part One). Luckily, Brent runs into Taylor's mate, Nova (Linda Harrison looking prettier than she did in PLANET) and she is able to lead him to kindly chimpanzee couple, Zira (Kim Hunter) and Cornelius (David Watson this time; Roddy McDowall was busy directing a film). The pacifistic simians try to help their human friends along their journey to find Taylor, but Brent and Nova only succeed in getting themselves captured by gorillas anyway.

Up to this midway point in the film, all we're really seeing is a rehash of the first APES movie, which feels obligatory to set up the scenario. Where this chapter starts to develop its own identity and really take off is in its second half, as Brent and Nova escape and find themselves going underground (literally) in the Forbidden Zone and discovering the ruins of a ravaged city, along with a community of radiation-scarred mutations who have mastered mental telepathy and worship an atomic bomb as their god who has "created" them. And they know it won't be long before the Ape Army will invade their sanctuary.

Charlton Heston felt that sequels were not very challenging for an actor in those days, so at first he resisted appearing in this movie. He eventually agreed on what gradually evolved into a more extended "cameo" in BENEATH as a favor to Richard Zanuck, since the producer had taken a gamble on making the original film when Heston asked him to. The resulting sequel can be a downbeat and unusually pessimistic viewing experience, but in an odd way that actually helps to work in its favor. The next entry was ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES (1971). *** out of ****

Beneath the planet of the apes is a continuation of the first.Astronaut Brent is sent on a rescue mission to find Taylor and his whereabouts.Brent ends up on the same strange planet that Taylor did and is captured by the apes and suffers the same faith as Taylor did only in a shorter version.Brent also discovers a mysterious under ground place where mutants worship an atomic bomb as their god.Little does Brent know the ape army is trying to track him down and kill him.Brent gets reunited with Taylor but the ape the ape army are getting closer and time is running out.

Some bad acting and stupid parts of this film made me give it a 6 rating.This is a classic but to me its losing some of its magic.Recommended to Planet of the Apes fans,sci-fi fans and people who finds Planet of the Apes interesting.This is enjoyable to some but not all.I hope the next sequels are as good as this.