Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

In an moment of Colonel Needham madness, Colonel Taylor pressed the doomsday button. My question is this - was Taylor seeking attention? Did he press the doomsday button so that everybody would be focusing on him? Was he trying to steal the limelight amidst all the commotion? Why? Why would he feel the need to become the centre of attention? He was mortally wounded and all he could think about was being in the spotlight.I do not understand why he did not simply perform a tap dance or sing a song - why did he have to behave so drastically? Perhaps his singing voice was not strong enough or he simply did not have the skills of a tap dancer?

Outstanding sequel to Planet Of The Apes, in this film another human crash lands his ship on the apes world.Chuck Heston gets too little screen time, but everything else about this movie is outstanding.One of the mutants down below is played by Paul Richards who did wonderful work on TV's The Fugitive and I Spy.Leonard Rosenman had done the score to Fox's Fantastic Voyage (1966) and I think the studio was attempting to get the Fantastic Voyage- feeling going again. His score here is perfectly matched to the film.Apes is a Fox production as were the Irwin Allen sci-fi TV shows of this period. In the early part of the film, where you see the crashed wreck of the spaceship, look hard and you can see the landing legs of spaceship Jupiter 2 (from Lost In Space) in the wreckage of the ship.Later in the film, part of the underground city is in fact "The Secret City Of Limbo" seen in Land Of The Giants.Beneath The Planet Of The Apes is great film with enough retro sci- fi connections to make it super-fun as well

While the first movie in the series, the adaptation of Pierre Boulle's excellent novel, was a somewhat mixed bag and ultimately a disappointment compared to the original material, the second one, Beneath the Planet of the Apes is simply an all-round disaster with a mind-numbingly stupid plot, horrible acting, incompetent directing and editing, and the lousiest special effects ever put on the screen.Mutant humans with telepathic powers worshipping a nuclear bomb in a temple set up amidst the ruins of a subway station? Did the filmmakers deliberately pick the dumbest idea they could find? And what was the message? It is better to blow up the whole planet than to cede our power to apes or mutants?But in the end, it's not the witlessness of the plot that counts but the execution. Make it exciting and at least semi-believable, and all will be forgiven. Unfortunately, Beneath the Planet of the Apes fails in every single department. It is both extremely boring and ridiculously cheap-looking, even for its time. By far the worst instalment in the series, a horrendous movie in itself, and quite possibly THE worst sequel of all time. (Although looking strictly at the extent of drop in quality, there are many serious contenders from Futureworld and Exorcist II or Speed 2 to The Force Awakens.)

I recently watched the original Planet Of The Apes and I actually enjoyed it. It offered a better look into what people were thinking at the time of "Science Vs Faith" That may still be argued to this very day. I watched the sequel because I managed to find a box set containing every single movie to do with the Planet Of The Apes up until Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes and this is probably the first movie in the series I didn't like.So the movie opens with a rescue party for the astronauts in the first movie that also crash lands on the planet... Which I have to ask how NASA knew they were in any kind of danger considering their expedition would take 1000 years, but I digress, he then finds Nova from the first movie and one thing leads to another and that leads them to the Apes where he escapes and goes to find another group of humans that have evolved to a higher plain of evolution.My biggest problem with the movie is the ending. So Taylor and this other guy escape the "Higher humans" prison cell and when they make their way out the Apes attack and it ends with them blowing up the world, basically killing all life. They kill their own lead characters off for almost no reason whatsoever for what?... To make no sequels? I really want to know what the though process was behind literally killing this entire franchise and I know that there are more but how exactly can someone write their way out of "We blew up the world in the last movie". Even still, without this in mind I still think it's a horrible ending.And even with all this in mind there is still a lot to which I didn't like. The worshiping of an unexploded nuke like they're going to Sunday Mass made no sense to me. Wouldn't they know that going into an underground church where there's something that's still functional that obliterates almost everything in the area be more feared then worshiped, another thing that bugs me is that the bomb is worshiped in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY as Christianity. Isn't every religion meant to be celebrated differently? It just doesn't add up.Aside from that ranting and even more things to complain about this movie is not without it's benefits. The sets of the underground cave are really well done and the make-up is better then ever and the cinematography works for what it's trying to do.So it's not entirely awful it just has some really big problems that just detract from the enjoyment of the movie. I will finish watching all the Apes movies but this won't really be one I'll come back to in time.