Reviews

This was one of my favorite movies of 2011. It's a docudrama and a biopic, as in the documentary is fictional so actors play real life people, or real life people act as real life people around a frame story within the true life story about a mortician played by Jack Black who winds up befriending and then killing an old lady that everyone interviewed within the movie thoroughly despises...

The problem with BERNIE is that it's too much of a propaganda piece for the real life murderer who was doing a life sentence when it was made, and the director wanted him to get out of jail, by making him look angelic while the dead woman (his victim) looks demonic...

And he did a good job of that, for sure, because basically what the movie does it provide a story of a woman who basically deserved to be murdered, and a man who deserved not to be punished for that murder, and that's just not right...

But it's Hollywood, who often sides with killers mainly because they're alive and can be charming, and no one can argue with their side since the person they killed are, well, dead, you know, and cannot defend themselves...

Beyond that overboard bias, BERNIE is very entertaining, providing actor AND singer Jack Black a great dramatic-twisting-comedic role...

The only person who overacts and overreaches and doesn't seem like part of a documentary but rather a one-sided black comedy is Matthew McConaughey, the prosecutor made into a kind of Archie Bunker style homophobic villain, acting as close-minded and red-necky as Shirley MacLaine makes the victim seem better off dead i.e. One dimensional cliches...

PS In particular, of the interviewees, the standout is indie-acting-cult-actor Sonny Carl Davis, whose 2-minute explanation of the different parts of Texas is like it's very own movie.

The low score by for this made-for-TV biopic on the iconic kid's series SAVED BY THE BELL based on a book none of the cast liked by Dustin Diamond, an actor none of the kids liked either, who played the comic relief Screech on the series...

The reason is the fans probably are siding with the cast (and even Dustin Diamond himself has literally written-off the source biography) about how this movie plays loose with the facts...

The only thing is, there aren't many facts here at all... Nothing too controversial or that would make any of the real life actors look like they did anything other than argue with each other backstage, which is par for the course...

Overall it's not too shabby a biopic, even beginning with a few scenes about the first Haley Mills series for which it spun-off...

So it all flows pretty well, and while the girls don't look like their real life counterparts they are extremely cute in their own way... as for the guys, they kind of go through the motions...

Of course the true star here is Dustin Diamond's character and they make him look the most vulnerable, being his story...

The only thing is, they make it seem as if Diamond didn't get girls and was an outcast in real life, when in reality, he probably got as many girls and had even more good times than the others: my parents once saw Don Knotts with two hot blondes at either side...

Real life doesn't mirror fiction.

In 1955, Charles Bronson played a cellmate to Broderick Crawford in BIG HOUSE USA... and only four-years earlier (as Charles Buchinsky) he had a quick yet important part in the Waterfront noir THE MOB...

Where Crawford's an undercover cop (after the opening theme later used for THE BIG HEAT) seeking the leader/boss of a crime-syndicate screwing around the workers by choosing only their own... and Bronson's the one guy complaining during his single scene where they're calling out names for work (overseen by future GODFATHER horse-head victim John Marley), while Crawford and his newfound working-class buddy Richard Kiley look on...

After which THE MOB takes place mostly at night, sometimes in shadowy alleyways but mostly within economical studio interiors aping motel rooms or taverns... while random baddies from gun-wielding goon Neville Brand to bigger gun-wielding goon Ernest Borgnine put Crawford through the ringer, including an attempting wrong-man murder rap...

And like any noir there's a good girl in Crawford's nurse fiance, and a seemingly bad girl in a setup/date he has the hots for, and vice versa... but only because he's pretending to be single...

And while the future HIGHWAY PATROL icon definitely looks the part of a tough guy, he's simply too old and fat for sexy women to instantly adore or for his undercover ruse to seem legitimate... instead resembling one of the veteran police chiefs who sent him on the mission in the first place...

Overall, because of his size, age and teflon countenance, no matter what happens, Crawford never seems in any real danger -- taking the thriller out of what's more a rushed yet entertaining b-crime time-filler... with a pretty neat twist on who's actually running THE MOB.

Following what's more an art-house crime melodrama in KILLER'S KISS, young photographer turned director Stanley Kubrick created a more polished, genuine film noir that -- using a then-rare, non-linear structure -- is also far more complicated... so much that the studio forced one of those docudrama-style narrations throughout...

Working best to map-out the ensemble of criminals who are otherwise everyday workers at the targeted racetrack along with a crooked cop, a wrestler and last but not least, a bonafide hoodlum to shoot a running horse...

Where Timothy Carey plays another teeth-gritting, offbeat character, and his expository with master criminal (and this group's leader) Sterling Hayden perfectly suits pulp-novelist Jim Thompson's hardboiled dialogue...

Yet not everyone's aboard this main heist -- while Hayden's good girl Coleen Gray's second-billed, it's scene-stealer femme fatale Marie Windsor who's technically the most important...

As the wife of wimpy track-teller Elisha Cook Jr., she's part of a double-cross with handsome lover Vince Edwards with a slowburn sidekick in Kubrick three-timer Joe Turkel, soon to join Carey as one of three doomed soldiers in the anti-war classic PATHS OF GLORY, which is deeper and more befitting what would become Kubrick's signature style: including long-takes, mesmerizing wide-shots and slow-pan camerawork,...

Yet THE KILLING is where the iconic auteur ignited fluid characterization, captured within phantom-walled interiors and genuine location exteriors beneath grim, shadowy darkness to brightly exposed sunlight -- visually combining stylish nuance with a severe and gritty, uncompromising edge.

Will Forte has an interesting face, his mouth naturally curved to a frown. His character David Grant has very little to celebrate: His girlfriend dumped him and his father Woody, played by veteran actor Bruce Dern, is bent on taking a trip from Montana to NEBRASKA after receiving a Mega Sweepstakes Marketing Prize in the mail...

David knows it's a gimmick to sell magazines, but Woody, a lifelong drinker with rudimentary signs of dementia, keeps physically threatening to walk the impossible distance... Not an easy task of course, especially given his frail physical and mental status making even a hundred yards difficult... Thankfully, David decides to give poor dad a ride...

Like director Alexander Payne's SIDEWAYS and ABOUT SCHMIDT, this deadpan odyssey is a "road movie" epitomizing that niche; although most of the time's spent sidetracked at Woody's NEBRASKA hometown of Hawthorne...

This is where most of the story takes place; and his brother (Rance Howard) - and then later on, several brothers - aren't much different in tone: passive and mundane "men of few words." But Woody has a destination and the entire town thinks he's a millionaire already...

Enter initially subtle antagonist Stacy Keach who, like Dern himself, is known for and reveled in edgy, borderline insane guy roles during the 1970's and 1980s... His laidback yet investigative Ed Pegram also likes to drink and hang around the local tavern, and now there's an agenda - he wants a payoff and Woody's family wants some too; particularly two fat oddball nephews straight out of the Coen Brothers' quirky universe.

David becomes a shadow on the wall during in-house family scenes, and his barroom conversations with Keach are reminiscent of George Clooney and polite-for-a-financial-purpose Beau Bridges as his cousin in Payne's previous film, THE DESCENDANTS: a polite, friendly tone obscuring an underlying rancor.'

In a story replete with intentionally sparse characters, June Squibb is the obvious audience-favorite (perhaps too obvious, forced) as Woody's sarcastic, foul-mouthed, hen-pecking wife Kate, stealing scenes mostly because she has the funniest lines, and is a breath of fresh air from the monotone surrounding her presence...

She seems more realistic than your typical actress/actor playing down to cliché (but not condescending) small town mentality the director previously covered in ABOUT SCHMIDT (where June was Jack Nicholson's wife)...

In fact, NEBRASKA often feels like an extremely subtle art film satire, while the plush yet primitive B&W cinematography turns the titular state into a rustic hybrid of paradise and purgatory... Some of the best scenes are the scenery, taking place outside Woody's passenger seat window...

In Will Forte's case, he initially doesn't seem up to the job (his successful brother's played by Bob Odenkirk and might've fared better)... A comedy actor, his deadpan often seems somewhat reached for instead of naturally holding back...

But (after a recommended second, third or fourth viewings) once you realize his fourth fiddle status to the location, and the overall journey, and especially to his father... it becomes more clear...

Forte's an awkward yet ultimately wise choice opposite Dern, existing beneath the father's jangily rhythm instead of playing loggerhead to his unnerving, unapologetic neurosis. His David Grant seems to have given up long ago; and despite being the driver on this trip, he's merely along for the ride.

Meanwhile, the "man of the hour," Bruce Dern (nominated for an Oscar) seems almost too authentic. The sporadic dialogue and a few blunt moments of passion aside, his expressions are what really matter...

Old Woody's a man who's kept everything inside while traces of a buried life seep out from his gently confused, timeworn face, painfully etched with age and mileage but not without a faint glimmer of hope, no matter how unavailing and desperately futile: therein lies the mystery and adventure of Alexander Payne's NEBRASKA.

The is by far the best, funniest episode of What's Happening, but also the worst titled, as NICE GUYS FINISH LAST has almost nothing to do with what the episode is about...

It should be titled Dee's Pen-Pal since, well, Dee has a pen-pal, Judy, who gets out of jail and is (or is already) invited to stay at the Thomas household...

The funniest moments have Raj the innocent mama's boy not trusting this jail-bird, and trying to act tough at the same time...

In one scene, he's wearing a soccer uniform, seated, and Dee says, "It looks like someone tried to dress a chair," which could possibly be the funniest liner ever on this series, where Dee was the funniest in the first two (of three) seasons, as a young brat who made her brother's (and his buddy's) life hell...

The title is probably referring to the third-act character in future character-actor Harold Sylvester (Uncommon Valor, Vision Quest), who plays the dingbat ex-con boyfriend of Judy...

And how Dee solves the impending trouble, by just being Dee, simply adds to what was already a perfect episode.

Even rabid fans of the sitcom SEINFELD are realizing that that joke about Jerry not being a good actor, built right into the classic show itself, is actually true... More noticeable here as he plays the fast-talking spokesman of Kellogg's cereal who winds up inventing Pop Tarts (NOT based on the real guy who ACTUALLY invented Pop Tarts)... And while it's an overboard performance, using his snappy build-to-the-punchline delivery while portraying a desperately hyper-active (and somewhat shallow) advertising man trying to save one cereal company (Kellogg's) from another (Post)... at least he's TRYING to act here... or rather, he's attempting to pull off a performance instead of just being Jerry...

And Jerry's no stranger to letting an ensemble of more experienced actors shine around him... But UNFROSTED simply has too many cooks, ranging from Jim Gaffigan as one of the Kellogg's neurotic family members, seeming to imitate Jerry's verbal rhythm like a bad imitation... or Melissa McCarthy, playing, once again, Melissa McCarthy as... well...

She's ALSO someone working for the same cereal company that's part of an all-star Made-for-Netflix movie that feels as if MAD MEN were being parodied on a hybrid of SNL and GLEE: And Hugh Grant, playing the man who voiced Tony the Tiger... as a pretentious stage-actor sinking to the lowly depths of commercialized capitalism, he's just kinda... well... he's just kinda there...

As a matter of fact, everything here (with all the frantically-eclectic running around) are just kinda there... even and especially Seinfeld himself, doing his best to make every... single... second.... matter... For either an intended slapdash laugh, or perhaps to cover up the fact that, as a novice director, he's bought into the old con-man's adage that... Using enough fast-flying information, they'll never figure out that you actually... don't know anything.

Director Alexander Payne is passive/aggressive when it comes to his previous SIDEWAYS star Paul Giamatti's character Paul Hunham, a stuffy, curmudgeon-like professor of an ivy league boy's school, who in one scene angrily lectures his students while glibly handing-out failing grades, and the next idealistically defends the institution's grieving African-American cook from one of a small-handful of HOLDOVER teens, unable to go home for Christmas and having to spend a melancholy "detention" (like THE BREAKFAST CLUB meets DEAD POET'S SOCIETY meets 1972's CHILD'S PLAY) stuck in an otherwise vacant campus...

Ironically, that particular scolded brat winds up getting a last-minute Christmas vacation reprieve... a shame since he had the kind of antagonistic attitude that would inevitably transition by the end...

But here the sole abandoned youngster is Dominic Sessa as Angus Tully, one of those semi-complicated blunt/sassy meets dull/depressed loner types, and who's almost impossible to either root for or relate with...

And sadly, with uneven ingredients stuffed into a bland counter-culture-era drama (probably set in 1970 so the kids aren't glued to cell-phones), NEBRASKA and ABOUT SCHMIDT indie-auteur Payne... usually prone to road-movies with a fresh twist around every corner... drives a tired vehicle down a tediously overlong and ultimately dead-end street.

The final episode, and perhaps, as we see Virdon, Burke and Galen heading off on a raft towards (perhaps) another land in the last frame, this serves as a decent farewell - although the show was cancelled... So for the PLANET OF THE APES television series, there's no actual conclusion.

Pasted Together TV-Movie

Plot centers on a rogue human (slightly resembling Soupy Sales) who created a hang glider - that works, somewhat...

Astronauts Virdon and Burke, knowing a thing or two about flight and a lot about altitude, teach him how to make a better pair of wings - but the inventor gets captured, and must be freed before a lady ape scientist tricks him, and a love-struck Galen, into turning the flying machine into a primitive B1 Bomber...

And all pretty much good stuff, especially the aerial scenes - seeing an ape on a hang-glider is what made our youth dreamlike and cool-weird...

But alas, it's a sad and literal farewell to a creative series, and one of two episodes (beginning with TOMORROW'S TIDE, a personal favorite i.e. "the one with the shark") compiled into a so-called TV-movie mixing this episode in circa 1980, titled FAREWELL TO THE PLANET OF THE APES. But both UP ABOVE THE WORLD SO HIGH and/or FAREWELL has no closure since the series was cancelled after season one. Like so many other great cult shows, it lived on in our imagination. They're out there still. Finding their way...

The one episode never aired, and perhaps that's a good thing because it's a subpar outing, resembling a lesser STAR TREK episode with campy costumes and, like several other episodes, a lack of apes.

Centering almost completely on a group of villagers who punish their own by execution, we follow an Arian blonde fella and his dark haired girlfriend falling in love against the will of the village leader who won't let go of the past. Pretty boring, especially since our mainstays Virdon, Burke, and Galen serve very little in the dull proceedings. Seems like a failed attempt at some kind of spinoff that would have not lasted half a season.

An episode about a village of humans dying of Malaria would seem a drag, and many shows after, like LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE, would have very searing episodes on the subject of disease wiping out towns, but this is surprisingly one of the best episodes...

The ape doctor doesn't believe Virdon and Burke, who know a thing or two about this "unknown" disease called Malaria.

Sondra Locke, a few years shy of being Clint Eastwood's girlfriend/co-star in projects ranging from BRONCO BILLY and SUDDEN IMPACT, plays a pretty village lass smitten with Virdon, who had shared their background as astronauts - and when she comes down with the illness, under delusion she tells all to the Ape doctor, putting the trio at risk and making this a race double-edged race against time: our heroes need to gather tree bark for a possible cure and escape before the apes find out their true identities.

The worst episode yet has Burke (James Naughton) getting captured, and a masochistic female ape (Beverly Garland) putting him through the ringer...

Including a spinning wheel/rack and hypnosis, all the while strangely seducing him while the most annoying sounds, like clocks from hell, tick and chime in the background: All this is supposed to make Burke go stark raving mad, and then some, but this primal torture chamber winds up torturing the audience as well.

On the peripheral, Virdon and Galen are trying to locate their friend by visiting Galen's house, where mother is helpful but human-loathing senate seat father takes a while to come around. Meanwhile, the only good/decent and/or worthwhile/entertaining scene involves Burke hallucinating beautiful blonde Lynn Benisch (who appeared in many TV shows during the 1970's but never looked so pretty) in place of Garland's ape under hypnosis. But she doesn't last long enough. Making her image alone a red rose in a garbage bucket.

Turns out General Urko really isn't so bad - like comparing Stalin to Hitler during WWII. The episode starts out great - setting up two human characters that seem a mainstay...

Michael Conrad as a farmer and his rambunctious ape-hating son, James Daughton ("Greg," head of the Deltas from ANIMAL HOUSE, in his second episode). Daughton joins with our hero-trio Virdon, Burke and Galen in battling a band of apes led by the titular villain, Aboro, ruling the town with an iron fist...

And unlike Urko, not adhering to any rules or laws. But the episode wanes when, after a tragedy, Galen is sent to Aboro's tent undercover (as Zaius's aid), tricking him into a personal battle with Urko. Despite being dialog-laden, there's a con - kind of a Planet of the Apes version of THE STING - that's somewhat involving. Although for the most part, it's like watching a bland stage play.

They called in action director Jack Starrett... who directed a bevy of biker flicks, SLAUGHTER'S BIG RIPOFF, and later RACE WITH THE DEVIL and played the helicopter riding redneck cop in FIRST BLOOD... for this episode about an important horse race that could free a disgruntled prefect, and a blacksmith's human son, the latter who illegally rode a horse to save Galen from a scorpion bite.

And it's up to Virdon to ride against Urko's best rider - and his life's at risk since Urko has his henchman ready to gun him down before he wins or after he loses...

With the exception of Morgan Woodward as the blacksmith, some overacting occurs between the gorillas and Woodward's son, who seems like a cameo player in a CHIPS episode and isn't as effective as an intrepid youngster played by ANIMAL HOUSE villain, MALIBU BEACH hero and the guy who competes with Fonzie when he jumped the shark on HAPPY DAYS, James Daughton, but the race's climactic action pulls it all through.

The one thing Galen's missing is a girlfriend or wife, especially since we all know McDowall's Cornelius character as being matched with Kim Hunter's Zera in the original films... and here a ladyfriend is introduced - well actually, she and Galen are former lovers, and Kira's a surgeon who holds the skills, along with a discovered forbidden book on human surgery tactics, to save Virdon: who's been shot by Gorillas.

But first, the one thing he needs before the operation is the transfusion from a put-upon teenager, whose father thinks she's cursed: and he'll do everything to stop the surgery...

Has that time-is-running-out intensity throughout, and is thus as aggravating as suspenseful, but a cool episode giving Galen more depth than usual. And last but not least, CHARLEY VARRICK actress Jacqueline Scott (quoted at the end of this article from an interview) plays the surgeon aka the Galen's ex, and is wearing Kim Hunter's (from the first three films) same mask. And behind another ape mask is James Naughton's brother, David Naughton, who would be a (Dr.) Pepper before starring in the John Landis classic AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON.

An episode that centers on a village of exploited humans used as fisherman - they venture into the shark-saturated ocean with spears, risking their lives for a catch that benefits the ape foreman, Roscoe Lee Brown...

And soon become one of... or, two of them - having to pass dangerous initiations, including swimming under fire, dodging sharks and landing a catch on the spear. Pre-JAWS, this forebodes the shark scare craze that would strike a year later, and has terrific moments and is one of the better episodes: getting down to bare-knuckle action. Galen, in trying to con Browne, has some fun. Even Virdon points out: "I didn't know he was that much of a ham." Character actor John McLiam co-stars as the McGuffin, but it's those sharks that, although obviously stock footage, make things work.

The fugitive three discover a computer, resembling a candy machine, that tells the history of humans, and might serve more answers - but it turns off, and when the Gorillas raid soon after, they capture Virdon..

Thus placing a street urchin, played by a pre-BAD NEWS BEARS Jackie Earle Haley, as a spy to learn the whereabouts of Burke and Galen, who are elsewhere planning to free their friend whom the gorillas are using as a plant to snare the entire trio.

An entertaining episode with some nice twists - and Ron Harper's character is front stage as we get to know him from the inside/out. Meanwhile, the artistic-looking, real life dancer Zena Bethune, Harvey Keitel's girlfriend from Martin Scorsese's first theatrical yet still very low-budget film WHO'S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR and who, years later in real life, died tragically while trying to save an injured possum on the freeway, guest stars along with Haley.

Galen is shot, so Burke and Virdon take him to a farm where a family can nurse him to health. The old-fashioned ape clan doesn't trust the humans, especially the oldest son, who, to become an actual farmer, must have his pregnant cow give birth to a bull.

Thinking the humans have cursed this, he's the one thing that might put our heroes in jeopardy, and this character gets fitfully annoying - to the astronauts and audience both. Good episode, kind of a LITTLE APE ON THE PRAIRIE with Lonny Chapman and Jacqueline Scott as the farmer mother and father, while Bobby Porter, who portrayed Caesar's son in BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES, is the youngest son. The best scenes involve Virdon, a farmer in his "past life," teaching Chapman the real ways of planting soil... for actual results.

Here we get to know the villainous General Urko as a real... um... person.

He and Burke, during a fight in the demolished San Francisco when an earthquake breaks out, fall into a hole and wind up underground where a subway existed, including a poster advertising a zoo...

Where children are feeding a banana to a caged gorilla. Burke talks the furious Urko into helping him escape instead of killing him, providing the best moments. All the while Burke hopes the general doesn't see that poster, which proves the very thing all Gorillas' don't want to face: that humans preceded them. Tautly suspenseful (in the Irwin Allen fashion) with terrific dialogue between human and ape - one of the best episodes, perhaps even the best of the series.

Like after any pilot episode, the budget here on episode two is noticeably sparse and we're cut down to a more centered storyline with less Apes and more humans... After all, it's much easier to throw rags on people than to dress up those gorillas...

In this sort of old school gladiator style episode without fancy armor, Burke and Virdon must go up against a human brawler who fights other humans for the ape's enjoyment.

Muscle-bound character actor William Smith is the formidable badass and his son, who's learning the ropes, is played by Marc Singer. The last half, as Singer and Galen compare the "virtues" of warriors and pacifists, drags despite the awesome premise. But the scene where Burke's pitted against Smith makes the episode shine - although the turnout is pretty unrealistic.

Pilot episode of the television series based on the franchise of motion pictures involving two astronauts: older blond-haired Ron Harper and cool young dark-haired James Naughton aka Virdon and Burke, who land on a planet ruled by... you got it... talking apes. The beleaguered astronauts meet Roddy McDowall as Galen, a friendly chimp (Cornelius with a new name...

Galen was actually an assistant chimp in the original movie) helping them dodge gun-totting militaristic Gorillas while a local, Royal Dano, provides shelter and exposition about their situation. The suspenseful plot involves straight-line survival, setting up the series' template: Virdon, Burke and Galen are known fugitives who must be caught and it's General Urko, played by a fitfully hammy Mark Lenard, who heads up the chase - although it's the scientific orangutan, Zaius, who wants them alive: but for scientific reasons, which would lead to the same lethal conclusion.

Like RETURN OF THE JEDI would a decade later, ending the original STAR WARS franchise with a more accessible forest location along with big-budget science-fiction style lighted-corridors throughout dark steely fortresses, so the original ape series concluded with BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES costing the least amount of money... only you wouldn't know since the new exterior locale (where both apes and humans can speak) takes place in what seems like something from a sparsely affordable Robinson Caruso production...

Yet not entirely since at the end of the previous film, CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, there was an unseen and, herein, narrated-about (by John Huston) nuclear war after Roddy McDowall's Caesar took over... so the wilderness setting has a built-in explanation of the world going back to scratch... but there's also an underground compound of the previous formidable city after the holocaust: where the slain governor's main interrogator Severn Darden, with eerie post-nuke fallout garb, is now the main baddie...

But that's only on the humanoid side since there's Claude Akins as the gorilla antagonist, who's more part of the central story at the central village, posing the biggest threat while forgetting about what McDowall's Caesar had done to make apes rule the now secondary, semi-enslaved humans: his goal is for gorillas to lord over the now passive, domesticated chimps, including Natalie Trundy and Bobby Porter as Caesar's treehouse-dwelling wife and son...

And not since Maurice Evans' know-it-all Zaius, preferring ancient religion over science, had there been an integral intellectual orangutan... only here, Paul Williams is Caeasar's affable sidekick, spouting time-travel exposition alongside CONQUEST black actor Hari Rhodes's relative Austin Stoker: all three ultimately doing BATTLE against the monstrous nuclear-effected humans with the unpredictable gorillas in what's an otherwise imperfect conclusion that's never boring, and always with an intriguing and suspenseful, adventurous hurdle to climb.

Taking place twenty-years after the previous/third film of the franchise, ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES, which was set in the then-modern/groovy 1970's and hardly resembled a science-fiction film except the two talking chimps, Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter as scientist couple Cornelius and Kira, dying violently at the end but, in a surprise twist, their talking baby chimp was saved by traveling circus owner Ricardo Montalban as Armando...

Who for some reason, as CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES begins, makes a rather idiotic decision to visit the primary police-state location shot at the University of Irvine in California, resembling a sparse, steely fortress/city ruled by a firm futuristic hand of the law, casting a daunting shadow over its inhabitants...

Especially any kind of simian because, as we learn from Armando talking to Roddy McDowall's Milo, soon to become the revolution-leading Caesar... because of the astronauts from the previous film, all dogs and cats had died, making humans lean on simians both as pets and low-paid workers, from hairdressers to waiters...

The best scenes occur in the middle as McDowall's Caesar (with girlfriend Natalie Trundy as a more outright alluring girl-ape version of Kim Hunter) goes undercover in plain site... like his father Cornelius, he hides his power of speech and is put through what's called Ape Processing, a boot camp meets concentration camp... before being hired to work for the main antagonist in a sinister governor played by the usually lightweight stock-handsome Don Murray, so drastically over-the-top it's more logical to center on his sympathetic black assistant Hari Rhodes...

Meanwhile nefarious henchman/interrogator Severn Darden (looking almost like an ape himself) will head the villains in the next and last venture, BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES, that occurs after a gorilla uprising and impending nuclear war: the latter that we never actually witness but, despite the budgets dropping with each vehicle (many night scenes are hard to distinguish characters clearly), the truly remarkable action's saved for the climactic titular CONQUEST....

In particular one suspenseful scene where a horde of torch-carrying apes approach slowly from a distant vanishing point: overall filmed in a tight and flowing, violently brisk fashion by J. Lee Thompson as Roddy McDowall's final takeover speech could have easily led to an Oscar nomination -- if only these kind of films were taken seriously beyond the immense box-office combination of both cult and mainstream audiences.