Favorites - Planet of the Apes Movies: Least Favorite to Favorite - Part 1

Well, this was definitely a long time coming. Years ago, I decided to quickly browse over the original Planet of the Apes movies. Rise of the Planet of the Apes was just about to be released. I also remember an old friend who really liked the movies… sigh. Now, that’s someone I’d like to forget about. Anyway, my overview of the movies wasn’t all that great. Those were the first movies I ever talked about on the blog and I was still improving the in this writing thing. I always wanted to revisit that post since, at that time, I hadn’t seen the movies in years.

Now that the newer POTA movies have been released, I think it’s finally time to rank these things from least favorite to most favorite. I’m saying least favorite because even when the movie or show is bad, you can still find something worthy in it. This time, I’ve re-watched all of the original movies, the newer movies, that Tim Burton thing, and the TV shows. I did think about including the TV shows with this list, but this thing’s going to be long enough without them. Besides, I’ll just tell you now that I’d rather watch some of those episodes more than a couple of these movies. With all that said, I’ll get to it.

9. Planet of the Apes (2001)

Well, we get to this… gem of a movie. I re-watched it days ago and I’m shocked that I considered putting Beneath the Planet of the Apes as the lowest one. Beneath is not a good movie, but I will even watch that over this thing. The movie is pretty much a high-action remake of the 1968 original. Mark Wahlberg plays an astronaut who gets swept up in a timestorm. He’s sent to the future and crashes on a planet where apes rule and the humans are slaves. He gets captured, but thanks to a human rights activist, he and a group of humans go on the run. Through their travels, they find out about this planet of apes came to be.

So, do I need to answer on why this movie’s at the bottom? No, but I’ll do it anyway. Yeah, there’s the ending that taints it, but I’ve already covered that here. Even without that ending, you still have a subpar movie. The writing is pretty bad overall from the story to the dialogue. It feels rushed at times and doesn’t convey its message all that well. It’s also pretty campy but in an off-putting way. Even though the writing didn’t help him much, Wahlberg’s performance was also pretty crappy. He’s just a generic action man here, aka “The Sam Worthington.”

Even though the movie fails in most areas, it does have some decent bits. The makeup and costumes for the apes were pretty cool and detailed. The CG was pretty good.  I also liked the little twist about how the planet came to be. That part was pretty reminiscent of the original movie. I also thought the action was quite nice. While the movie fails at being an intellectual movie, it’s fine in the action department. Overall, while I can’t call this movie good, there are worse movies out there. You might even get a laugh out of it.

8. Beneath the Planet of the Apes

Well, it looks like the first Ape movie I ever saw gets this spot. Yeah, the fifth movie even beat this one! Beneath takes place right after the first movie. Taylor ends up disappearing, so he gets replaced with Brent, another astronaut who’s crashed on Earth. He finds Nova and pretty much goes through a retread of the first movie. When we leave that retread, they run into the Forbidden Zone and find a weird group of humans with telepathic abilities and a nuclear bomb. Add the Apes’ gorilla army coming to the Forbidden Zone and you get a really subpar action flick.

Re-watching this one felt weird. With the way POTA left off, you could have gotten a decent follow-up out of a sequel. Unfortunately, this movie was the follow-up. I remember hearing that Charlton Heston didn’t even want to come back for this one. That’s why he’s barely in it and James Franciscus is left trying to be another Taylor. Brent’s okay but really doesn’t do too much except for run and get beat up (mentally and physically) by folk. Apparently, Heston was the reason why the movie ended the way it did with the world blowing up. That ending probably has two positives: it has a clear message about war and it ends the movie.

The place where the movie fails at is the story. Most of the movie is more or less a retread of the first movie. When we get something new with the underground mutants, we barely get any time to explore it. At least it’s something interesting. There’s also not really much being said here. All of the other movies and the TV shows try to talk about certain topics. While there are ones like war and religion being thrown out there, it doesn’t come together well. If there’s one message I got from this movie, it’s to keep weird men away from bombs… huh, that is something relevant especially these days!

Now, I still find the movie entertaining even with its flaws. I think you could blame nostalgia on this one but not completely. The action is good at times especially the Taylor/Brent fight at the end. When those obvious masks aren’t being shown (the meeting at Ape City looks horrible in HD), the makeup for the apes and the mutants is pretty good. The looks of the radiated New York City still look haunting. The stuff involving the mutants (the interrogation, the hymn singing, and the fighting) is also pretty entertaining and funny. Lastly, it was nice to see some of our ape regulars (Cornelius, Zira, and Zaius) even though some get little screentime. Oh well… at least Nova was looking nice!

7. Battle for the Planet of the Apes

Next up is the last movie from the original series. It was actually the third POTA movie I watched. Battle takes place 20 years after Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. War broke out over the world and things pretty much wen to hell. Caesar (Roddy McDowell) ends up leading a group of apes and humans in a small city where humans are basically second-class citizens. He ends up running to internal and external threats to his rule. The internal threat is Aldo, the gorilla’s leader, who wants a more harsh solution to the “human” problem. The external threats are the survivors of the city from Conquest that has now become irradiated.

While this movie goes at the bottom with most lists, I can’t do that with this one. It’s far from a good movie, but I don’t think it’s as bad as some say. I thought Roddy McDowell shined as Caesar and pretty much everything involving him was nice. I also thought Virgil (Paul Williams) and Bruce MacDonald (Austin Stoker) were cool characters. I also liked the nods to previous Ape movies like the early versions of the human mutants. We even finally get the see the Lawgiver. Lastly, I thought the ending with the statue was a nice one. It’s one shot that’s open to interpretation and it was a nice one to end the original series on.

While it has good things, it also has a fair share of bad. While the story isn’t bad, it does feel thin at times. Also, the budget is starting to show since the action we get is pretty crappy and the sets are bland. The villains weren’t that great either and came off as Saturday morning villains. In fact, the whole movie has a pretty tame family-friendly feel. I remember hearing that the creators wanted this to be less grim than previous entries. While I get it, the series needs some of that edge to be good in my opinion. Overall, while it has many shortcomings, I kind of like this one. At least we got a much better version years later.

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Update 7/24/18: Since this list is gone on for long enough, I gotta make this a three-parter. I didn't realize I'd say this much about the movies. Next time, I'll get to the next three on this list. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and can someone smack Tim Burton upside the head? Maybe he'll get back to doing better movies.