I remember liking this film as a kid, particularly the ending. I also remember really liking the lead actor. Having recently revisited this film I still like both of these things. The first half of the film is excellent in my opinion. It's tense, the gorillas are still scary (to me anyway because I saw it as a kid) and Nova is wonderfully played by Linda Harrison despite her lack of dialogue. It's very easy to like her and root for her because she's terrified most of the time but can't verbalise her fears. Brent is a good character too, and what surprised me when revisiting the first two films of this series is that his performance outshines Charlton Heston's. I never imagined I would say that because Heston is a renowned actor and I've always liked him but he's prone to moments of really hammy acting in these films. It's probably very much "of its time" but I found the actor playing Brent to be much more understated and believable.
The second half of the film is unfortunately a bit naff. The ideas are solid, but the telepathic humans kill the pace and mood of the film. Their motives are muddled too, to say the least. On the plus side the SFX are excellent for their time and I enjoyed the final showdown as much as ever. I love the ending too and it was good to see Taylor and Brent team up to take on the apes.
As a side note, there's a scene when Zira and Cornelius are talking to Brent and it looks like an extra shot has been added in where they mention that Taylor arrived with two friends. It's almost as if the filmmakers forgot to mention them and had to add the scene in during post-production. It's quickly skated over and then never mentioned again.
Overall this film is worth a watch.
Review of Beneath the Planet of the Apes
