Planet of the Apes (1968)
I have been sitting on watching this classic for a good while, partly because I already knew the ending from general pop culture references. Thankfully that doesn’t really matter that much as the film has a ton to offer and everything is basically just a slow eerie buildup to the inevitable foregone conclusion. Right from the start I liked the three astronauts very methodical determined approach to events happening to them. She is dead, water is flooding in, abandon ship, three days of rations. Let’s go! No time to waste. Then Heston is one annoying ball of exposition really hammering the time difference in with nine inch nails. Combined with some almost psychedelic camera work it was off to a pretty great start, making the shift when they encounter the ape civilization much more dramatic. Turns into literally a captivating narrative that isn’t afraid to open up big topics on evolution, religion, fanaticism, history and the ultimate scientific search for truth. But our sympathy changes as the revelations unfold for both Heston and us, that the ape antagonist sort of has a decent point and reasons for what he does.
Rating: 4