Beneath the Planet of the Apes

Unnecessary

When I watched Planet of the Apes, I was surprised by the quality of the writing. Even though Taylor was a frustrating ambassador to the ape world, at least his interactions with the apes were thought out and believable. As icing on the cake, the apes had reason for everything they did. The struggle between Zaius on the one side and Zira and Cornelius on the other even presented a bit of a moral dilemma, and it was intriguing to see how they went about answering it.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes offers none of the interesting elements of its predecessor, which is surprising because it works so hard at plundering it for the good parts. The reveal of the planet's identity to Brent is a huge letdown since the audience already knows precisely what he'll find. Taylor's attempt to convince the apes of his intelligence is replaced by Brent's interrogation at the hands of the mutants. The sequel's scene lacks much of the interest because their motivations are nowhere near as clear as those of Dr. Zaius. The mutants are also so arbitrary with their punishments that they bar any sort of rational exchange. The chase scene that was so exhilarating in the first movie is replaced by a fairly stock whose outcome felt rushed. All of this shows a terrible lapse in the quality of writing from the first one, probably because the producers didn't have a clear idea of where they wanted to go other than the bank.

Nitpicking

• The mutants somehow feel that having their enemies kill each other is a peaceful way of life. I'll grant that if the enemies are killing each other of their own free will. Instead, their use direct exertion of mind control strikes me as pretty hard to reconcile. In a curious twist on the "brother always dies first" rule of moviemaking, the mutant whose mask is black is the first one to be killed. And why does the only racial minority have to be the one that does all of the bad stuff?
• What, exactly, are the protesters protesting when the gorillas are marching past? They seem to be demanding freedom, although from what I don't really know. Shouldn't they just be happy that the ape society is speciesist in a way that prevents them from being sent off to die?
• Nova is awfully willing to run back to Brent's arms even after he tried to kill her. Did she somehow know he was under mind control at the time?
• Is it me, or is the ape village much smaller than could accommodate the army they're taking with them? Come to think of it, where are the female gorillas?
• Zira offers to "double-lock" the door on the paddy wagon. She couldn't convince the gorilla to give her Brent and Nova, but she could trick one gorilla into giving her the key and the other into believing the door can be locked twice?