Conquest of the Planet of the Apes

4 August 2013

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes 1972

• Director: J. Lee Thompson
• Based on characters in the novel by Pierre Boulle
• Cast: Roddy McDowell, Hari Rhodes, Don Murray, Natalie Trundy, Ricardo Montalban
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Roddy McDowell – Overboard, The Poseidon Adventure, Inside Daisy Clover, Cleopatra, The Longest Day, the other Apes films
• Hari Rhodes - old TV series
• Don Murray – Peggy Sue Got Married, Happy Birthday Wanda June, and old TV series
• Natalie Trundy – the other Planet of the Apes sequels
• Ricardo Montalban – Sweet Charity and old TV series
•  Why? Part of series
• Seen: Now: July 26, 2013.

     Twenty odd years after Cornelius and Zira are murdered in the 1970’s their talking son Caesar leads the revolution of the pet apes-turned-slaves army.  The parallel to real slave rebellions is slightly interesting and the only good human, the handsome MacDonald, pleads for mercy for the humans as a noble descendant of slaves himself.  Caesar’s bitter and impassioned speech is pretty pathetic though and as a whole the film is simply boring.

Only one left before we can go back to something interesting.  Hope the fifth lifts the series a bit but I’m not holding my breath.

  

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