| The fourth and penultimate film in the series, "Conquest" represents a major change in tone from its relatively light-hearted predecessor, "Escape from the Planet of the Apes". This is notable as being the first film not to feature either any characters from the original film or characters created by Pierre Boulle. This time around, the focus is on Caesar, the now fully grown son of the talking chimpanzees from the future, Cornelius and Zira, who appeared in the previous three films. Like his father, Caesar is played by the good luck charm of the "Apes" <more> franchise, the frequently underrated Roddy McDowall.Taking place in the then near future of 1991, Caesar is brought into the city - which city is never specified - by his human foster father Armando, played extremely well by Richardo Montalban. Now about 18 years old, Caesar has seemingly lead a relatively sheltered life under the watchful and caring hand of Armando and has spent much of that time as a performer in Armando's circus, now an outdated form of entertainment. Caesar is told by Armando that in 1983, an astronaut brought a virus back with him from space and, as a result, every dog and cat in the world died within months. It was soon discovered that apes, like their human cousins, were immune to the virus and were consequently taken as pets in the years that followed. Over time, it became clear that apes could be taught to perform household chores and manual labour, meaning that they turned from pets into slaves. Outraged by his kind's plight, Caesar begins to plot a revolution to teach humanity a lesson.In terms of the effectiveness of its social commentary, "Conquest" is probably second only to the original film. It has very interesting things to say about humanity and the way in which we treat our kind. The apes are essentially a stand in for each and every race of people who have been oppressed or enslaved throughout history, most obviously African-American slaves in the United States and, before that, British North America. The mistreatment, to put it mildly, of the apes at the hands of the humans is deliberately intended to bring to mind that of the slaves in the Antebellum United States. This is exemplified by the presence of Mr. McDonald, played by Hari Rhodes, the one sympathetic human character other than Armando. Unlike many of his fellow humans, he sympathises with the apes' plight which is perhaps unsurprising given that he himself is African-American.As with the previous three films, "Conquest" has a strong villain in the form of Governor Breck, as played by Don Murray. Like "Escape"'s Dr. Hasslein, Breck has shades of Dr. Zaius about him and is as determined to eliminate the threat posed to the future of his civilisation as Dr. Zaius was in the first film. Murray turns in an excellent performance, with the exception of one or two hammy line deliveries towards the end of the film but that's a minor quibble. Watching Murray's performance, I couldn't help but be reminded of Hitler, which was no doubt screen writer Paul Dehn's intention. The fact that the security forces dress in black uniforms similar to those of the SS certainly reinforced the Nazi analogy. Incidentally, the political system of the United States in this fictional version of 1991 is never explained but it certainly appears to be a controlled society though perhaps not a dictatorship in the true sense of the word. With the exception of Murray, Rhodes and Montalban, the supporting cast of "Conquest" is not as strong as in previous entries but McDowall more than makes up for this with a fantastic performance as Caesar, the young, passionate and some might say idealistic ape embittered by the fate of his parents and the plight of his "people" at the hands of the U.S. government. McDowall reportedly preferred playing Caesar over his father Cornelius and I can see why. Cornelius was considerably more dovish and was hen-pecked by his wife, Zira Kim Hunter . You don't really get too many dovish revolutionaries, it has to be said.At the time of its release and subsequently, "Conquest" was criticised for its level of violence. While I wouldn't go as far as to call it mild by today's standards, it is nevertheless less extreme to modern audiences than it would have appeared in 1972. That said, I don't think that it's suitable for children under the age of, say, 12. In spite of all of the violence, I think I'm right in saying that we see only a few people or apes bleeding throughout the entire film. The climax of the second film, "Beneath the Planet of the Apes", was considerably more violent yet it received a "G" rating on its initial release in 1970! This has been rectified and it now carries a "15" rating, which is probably the most appropriate rating available as the classification system as it stands today. The original dark and pessimistic ending of "Conquest" was altered following a negative response from a test audience. In the altered ending, McDowall's voice is, rather badly, dubbed in post production. He makes a speech which I imagine is supposed to be impassioned on the future peaceful co-existence of apes and humans but, while I liked the contents of the speech as the idea is of course admirable, it comes out of nowhere when compared to the rest of the scene, let alone the rest of the film. The original ending in which the apes brutally beat Breck to death with their rifles is far stronger. McDowall was too good an actor to deliver the speech so badly except on purpose so I wouldn't be surprised if he was doing his bit to "sabotage" the sloppy re-edit. effective. <less> |
