Gh05tf4c3 K1ll3r

Blu Review: SCRE4M
15 – 110mins – 2011
Written by: Kevin Williamson
Based on characters created by: Kevin Williamson
Directed by: Wes Craven
Starring: Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courtey Cox, Emma Roberts, Hayden Panettiere, Anthony Anderson, Adam Brody, Alison Brie, Marielle Jaffe, Rory Culkin, Erik Knudson, Mary McDonnell, Mary Shelton, Nico Tortorella, and the voice of Roger Jackson
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“What's your favourite scary movie?”

Jigsaw has his macabre creativity for death traps, Leatherface has his chainsaw and Freddy Kreuger has supernatural access into his victims’ subconscious. In comparison, Ghostface’s prank n’ stab routine doesn’t sound *quite* so inventive, but Kevin Williamson’s mask-wearing creation has another ace up its baggy serial-killing sleeve: a dynamite knowledge of horror film conventions and a depraved penchant for subverting the “rules” as it slices its way through murder hotspot Woodsboro. (Note I'm saying “it” to avoid any spoilers, not because I'm ill-mannered!)

“New decade. New rules.”

So promises the tagline for series reviver Scre4m (that's Scream 4 to the easily confused), but I wouldn’t go quite that far – it’s more a case of the same rules warped out of predictability for a new generation of more clued-up, iPhone savvy victims (at one point Ghostface must reiterate over the phone: “I'm not an app”). Nevertheless, there’s still much fun to be had in determining just who has donned the ghoulish mask eleven years after trouble magnets Sidney Prescott (Campbell), Sherriff Dewey (Arquette) and Gale Weathers (Cox) last survived a grisly slashing.

“One generation's tragedy is the next one's joke.”

It was good to see the trio of series regulars return (even if none of them have exactly been hot property since Scream 3), meanwhile we are also introduced to a hip new cast of up-and-coming-faces (Roberts, Panettiere, Culkin) who have grown up with their only knowledge of the horrific local events coming in the form of in-universe horror franchise “Stab” (now on instalment number seven – some sagas just don’t know when to stop!), based upon journalist Gale’s bestselling book. Now they have to apply their knowledge of the movies to stay alive for real.

“This isn't a comedy, it's a horror film. People live, people die and you'd
better start running.”

The in-jokes are slick, smart and hilarious (“Saw 5? I’m so over it - the same thing happens every time!”), with supporting roles and cameos granted to a number of “look who it is!” contemporary stars (Brody, Anderson, Brie, Anna Paquin, Kristen Bell). It’s just a pity that – after his previous effort, the inexcusably dire My Soul to Take, bombed – returning director Wes Craven’s otherwise solid latest entry is ultimately let down by a weak ending with quite possibly the poorest reason for somebody to slaughter their family and friends I have ever heard.


In a CR@B Shell: Something of a return to form for the post-modern slasher series after 2000's less-than-loved trilogy closer, but I'm not quite sure how much more mileage there is in this self-aware, reference-heavy concept – yet there's talk of Scre4m kick-starting a whole new trilogy. Some sagas just don't know when to stop!
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Sliders: The Next Generation

Book Review: TIMERIDERS
Written by: Alex Scarrow
Published by: Puffin Books
Released: February 2010
425pages
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[SPOILERS] Three teenagers from three disparate periods of time – one from the past, one from the present day and one from the near-future – are plucked from their plains of existence in the moments before their untimely deaths and recruited by a shadow agency to become TimeRiders; “fixers” of broken history, if you will, who right the wrongs that less well-meaning time travellers from the future disrupt for their own avaricious and diabolical gain.

In this opening volume in a proposed nine novel arc from thriller writer (and Norwich resident) Alex Scarrow, Titanic deckhand Liam O’Connor, techno-nut Maddy Carter and fire victim Sal Vikram must adjust to their new raison d'être; before being thrown in at the deep-end pre-completion of their training when desirous physicist Paul Krammer travels back from the 206o's to dethrone Adolf Hitler and see Nazi Germany to victory over the Allied Forces who, in our correct time line (as you all should know) did win the war.

It is up to appointed “field agent” Liam – accompanied by an AI “meat robot” christened Bob (think Arnie in Terminator, only on the good guys' team) – to travel back to the source of the blip and erase Krammer's threat, or face living in a world which was never meant to be; a shell of a world brought to the very brink of destruction after the ripples of the butterfly effect see power – and paranoia – go to Herr Krammer's head; with catastrophic results...

For Scarrow to rely upon the Second World War for his first historical destination screamed to me of lazy cliché (much like the JFK assassination – which, surprise, surprise, the author exploits as well – it's been done to death), but my opinion mellowed when I considered that it was probably wise to ease his young adult readership into his newborn vision via a period today's teenagers would relate to having learnt so much about it at school. Whether it's tasteful to play around with such horrendous true events is another matter entirely. Which brings me conveniently onto my most major qualm with this work...

Living outside the realms of reality, the TimeRiders exist undisturbed in a continually resetting 48hour “time bubble” located in a disused warehouse in New York City on – wait for it – the 10th and 11th of September 2001. Yep, you read that correctly. Am I wrong to think that less than a decade on it's a mite insensitive to use 9/11 as a plot-point in a sci-fi fantasy? Scarrow's reasoning is that in this period of almighty tragedy for the modern world, everybody will be too otherwise concerned to notice three teens and their trainer wandering the streets looking for ripples in the fabric of space/time. But still...

Questionable moral decision aside, TimeRiders is otherwise a fairly entertaining read (if not quite as “mindblowing” as the cover blurb promised). Scarrow may not rewrite the rules on time travel here, but he has clearly done his research, and he has fun with some quite horrific alternate visions of our world. The revised 2001 which Maddy, Sal and agency headhunter Foster find themselves trapped in following Krammer's “amendments” was a shockingly graphic apocalyptic nightmare, and Scarrow often doesn't hold back in his gory descriptions; clearly a beneficial hold-over from his adult thriller works.


In a CR@B Shell: With the entirety of history at his fingertips, Alex Scarrow's all-too predictable primary destination bordered on self-destructive, but it soon opened up a more exhilarating and engrossingly ghastly bag of worms for the sub-team of teen heroes – and knowing where (and when) book two takes them, I'm prepared to stick around for a another trip with the charismatic TimeRiders.
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Embrace the Suck

Blu Review: BEASTLY
12 – 87mins – 2011
Screenplay by: Daniel Barnz
Based on the novel by: Alex Fynn
Directed by: Daniel Barnz
Starring: Vanessa Hudgens, Alex Pettyfer, Mary Kate Olsen, Neil Patrick Harris, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Peter Krause, Dakota Johnson, Erik Knudson
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An adaptation of a retelling of an animation of a classic tale, or – to put it simply – Beauty and the Beast Y2K. Loosely based on Alex Fynn's 2007 novel of the same name, Daniel Barnz's Beastly retains the immortal “beauty isn't skin deep” message – and recurring rose motif – from its renowned fairytale inspiration, but trades enchanted castles for modern day NYC, a sing-song soundtrack for Lady GaGa choons, fur and fangs for tattoos and scars, and peppers the whole affair in excruciating faddish slang such as “hatchet-face”, “a-holien”, “lame core” and “wonk”. Needless to say, this version won't still be enamoured by millions in years to come. But look out for it in the bargain bin in a couple of months.

“People like people who look good. Everyone who disagrees is either dumb or ugly.”

That's Kyle Kingson's (I Am Number Four's Pettyfer) mantra. Spoiled, shallow, spiteful, vain and arrogant, he's nevertheless “king” of Buckston Academy High School and always gets his way. Because his dad (Six Feet Under's Krause) is a rich and famous news anchor and Kyle is easy on the eye - but not for long.... After being humiliated by the rude jerk for the last time, gothic witch and fellow student Kendra (Olsen) casts a spell on Kyle which makes him as ugly on the outside as he is within. To break the curse, the freaky new-look Kyle must get a girl to love the beauty in the beast within one year, or look like a monster for the rest of his life.

That's not exactly the easiest ask when you “look like a victim in a slasher flick” and your equally superficial dad (like father, like son) pulls you out of school (“Rehab”) and hides you away from the world in an out-of-town prison– sorry, apartment, with only an ever-loyal maid (Hamilton) and a blind tutor (How I Met Your Mother's Harris) for company. Lonely, ashamed and depressed, Kyle sets his sights on former classmate Lindy (Sucker Punch's Hudgens), but he can't face confronting her for fear his aberrant appearance will scare her away.

On a self-pitying late night stroll through the city (hood up, face down), Kyle comes to the rescue when Lindy's addict father (LaFortune) is confronted by his debt collecting dealers. Unable to stop the troubled man from shooting one of the drug peddlers, Kyle blackmails him into agreeing to let his daughter stay in Kyle's secret hideaway to keep her veiled from the vengeful dealer who got away. But, of course, Kyle has another reason for wanting Lindy to be close to him, even if she isn't initially too happy about being sold to a "stranger".

The blossoming romance between beauty and the beast is sweet enough, if a little rushed (the seasons fly by with only leaves falling from the trees as an indication that time is passing), but Hudgens is too attractive for the role of Lindy, whose literary alter-ego has red hair and crooked teeth but is, you've guessed it, beautiful on the inside. Truth be told, Hudgens, is far cuter than Kyle's fair-weather ice queen girlfriend (Johnson), which contradicts the film's message and makes you wonder why he ignored her for so long before his transformation.

Deformed though he may be, Pettyfer isn't totally unrecognisable under his ink and prosthetics, yet we are meant to believe that even when Lindy sees “Hunter” (as Kyle takes to calling himself post-curse) she never questions his resemblance to the popular hunk from school who, coincidentally, has been absent for some months. It irks (akin to how nobody realises that Clark Kent without glasses is Superman), as does the insensitive way in which Lindy comes to stay in Kyle's apartment, but neither issue was as detrimental to my enjoyment as Beastly's continual attempts to be hip, happenin' and appealing to the teens of today. As I touched on above, the abbreviated lingo verges on incomprehensible at times (particularly in the first twenty or so minutes) while the contemporary soundtrack just feels shamelessly contrived and intrusive. Now that's lame core.

We all know the story, so we all know how Beastly ends: Happily ever after, of course, but the upcoming DVD and Blu-ray release (due in the UK on August 29th) includes a rather lengthy alternative ending which sticks much closer to Fynn's novel. My initial reaction was that I preferred it to Barnz's re-written conclusion, however I soon realised that it over-complicated the plot by bringing back one too many elements from earlier in the film at a time when the story needed clarity, not confusion.


In a CR@B Shell: A timeless love story is buried beneath a trendy try-hard surface; how ironic for a film about looking beyond the surface. Unfortunately, unlike Lindy I just couldn't get beyond Beastly's aesthetic flaws, and despite warming to certain elements I ultimately didn't fall in love with Daniel Barnz's youth-targeted refurb. Call me shallow if you must – but please don't curse me!
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High School Hideout

DVD Review: I AM NUMBER FOUR
12 – 109mins – 2011
Screenplay by: Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Marti Noxon
Based on the novel by: Pittacus Lore
Directed by: D.J. Caruso
Starring: Alex Pettyfer, Timothy Olyphant, Dianna Argon, Teresa Palmer, Callan McAuliffe, Kevin Durand, Jake Abel, Jeff Hochendoner
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[SPOILERS] Some books are just too friggin' complicated for the big screen treatment. Michael Winterbottom and Steve Coogan poked irreverent fun at the subject with A Cock and Bull Story, their metafictional take on Laurence Sterne's 18th century novel Tristam Shandy, while the mammoth The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King still required a gazillion endings and over 260minutes to wrap up J.R.R. Tolkein's concluding opus.

Pittacus Lore's 2010 young adult sci-fi fantasy novel – the first in a proposed six book series, no less – may not be in the same epic league as my above chosen examples, but it is extremely popular in today's heavily-diluted Y.A. market and the fight for the film rights ended in a bidding war for the must-have property. Having not read the source material (humorously promoted as "Twilight for boys"), there were times during director D.J. Disturbia Caruso's frenetic adap when I was seriously struggling to comprehend what the hell was going on!

Stormbreaker's Alex Pettyfer plays teen “John Smith”, an alien from the planet Lorian who, alongside eight other humanoid refugees, is in hiding on Earth from a gang of bounty hunting Mogadorians; the hideous tattooed extra terrestrials who destroyed Lorian and are now slaying the nine who escaped. In order. Maybe I missed why there must be an order to the deaths, but there is. Three have already been murder. “John”, as the title implies, is Number Four.

Accompanied by his tech-savvy guardian, Henri (The Crazies' Olyphant), “John” is forced to leave his Florida beach house and relocate to the sleepy Ohio town of Paradise, where he poses as a high school student and – despite Henri's instructions to stay lowkey and not attract any attention which may betray their location to the “Mogs” – “John” befriends gawky conspiracy theorist Sam (McAuliffe), falls in love with sweet-natured photographer Sarah (Argon) and fends off block-headed bully cliché Mark (Abel).

Meanwhile, a lizard morphs into a dog whom “John” adopts, Henri hides an alien relic in their grandfather clock, a mysterious blonde (Palmer) is on “John's” heels blowing everything up, the “Mogs” continue their hunt whilst shopping for enough food to feed the *something* they have contained in the back of a truck, oh, and “John” learns he has all manner of superpowers (known as “legacies”, because what we needed was more jargon) – such as extreme strength, agility and telekinesis – which he struggles to keep under wraps because light keeps shining from his hands.

The more sedate character-building scenes set at the school are amiable enough, mainly because Argon is cute, but the jock/bully subplot is as embarrassingly trite as Number Four using the timeworn pseudonym “John Smith”, while the way eager-beaver Sam is roped into the alien war is ridiculously complex and complicated (some tosh about his supposedly abducted father having worked out years ago that the Lorians had come to Earth).

When the “Mogs” – a dreadful abbreviation to a stupid mouthful of a word – eventually do track down Henri and Number Four (via yet another complex and complicated method of hoodwinking some online conspiracy nuts into luring the good guys to their house), producer Michael Transformers Bay's influence is clear as the CGI fireworks are set off in spectacularly busy fashion. “John's” dog morphs into a giant furry beast who fights off the winged creature let loose from the “Mogs'” truck, while “John”, Sam, Sarah and Palmer's mystery blonde (who reveals herself as the vengeful Number Six) run around the school trying not to be captured.

It's all just a bit of a headache, really, with a cavalcade of ideas which probably worked fairly well when interwoven into a 440page novel crammed into a confusing hour and forty-five minutes. It also niggled me how late it was left before Number Six revealed herself and the dog showed its monstrous true form; there are only so many teasing cutaways I can take before I want the plot to progress. I'm sure their was a reason for everything, but a lot of the action just came off as senseless (the prologue, in particular was too dark to discern anything), while a number of plot holes (such as why the overprotective Henri didn't look for John when he didn't answer three of his phone calls) shone as brightly as “John's” hands.


In a CR@B Shell: I can't accuse it of being boring, but I just found too many faults with this hokey big screen blockbuster to be entertained by everything that was thrown our way. Bit of a shame, really, but if they ever put the sequel into production (money talks, after all) it may help to expand upon and smooth over I Am Number Four's disparaging plotholes.
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City-eat-city

Book Review: PREDATOR'S GOLD
Written by: Philip Reeve
Released in: 2003
Published by: Scholastic
316 pages
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[SPOILERS] He may currently be shaggy beard-deep in Tintin and Hobbit shiz, but on the horizon Peter Jackson has an adaptation of the first book in Philip Reeve's bestselling Mortal Engines Quartet – that's the Hungry Cities Chronicles, as it is known in the US of A – in his bespectacled sight. This is the primary reason I sought out the introductory volume (Mortal Engines) last month; to get clued-up super early so I can pretend to know what the 'eck I'm talkin' bout when (or indeed if) the movie ever gets made.

Set on a post-apocalyptic Earth where entire settlements have uprooted from the nuclear-ravaged land they once occupied and gained themselves a set of wheels in an attempt to out-run one another for fear that the larger city-sized colonies will devour the smaller towns and villages and strip them of their much sought-after materials, commodities – even inhabitants!

“A City-eat-city world?!” I can imagine newcomers questioning. “You're taking the piss, surely?”. It's certainly a high concept pill to swallow, and I will admit to being *slightly* dubious as I read Mortal Engine's opening page – but, trust me, it isn't as ludicrous as the synopsis makes it sound, and I enjoyed this first dip into the bustling, ever-expanding steampunk-esque future-verse.

That being said, I can't claim to being unequivocally bowled over by it. I liked it, yes, but I didn't consider it sublime, faultless or unputdownable literary perfection and I was stumped when it came to conjuring up enough words to write a decent sized CR@Blog review (hence why you've never seen one). Nevertheless I was still satisfied – and curious – enough to seek out part two in the series: Predator's Gold. I'm pleased to report I've got plenty of opinions to wheel your way this time around ('cos if I hadn't there'd be nothing here for you to read, duh!).

Commencing two years after the first entry ended in spectacularly world-altering fashion, Predator's Gold sees our everyboy protagonist, ex-apprentice historian Tom Natsworthy, and his facially-disfigured girlfriend, Hester Shaw, pick up a famous literary hitch-hiker in their “inherited” airship, the Jenny Haniver. Seeking refuge on the once-thriving “Traction City” of Anchorage, the trio are in equal parts excited and disquieted by the level of disrepute that has befallen this once proud mecca, left devastated after a plague wiped out most of their population and left the inexperienced teenage margravine Freya Rasmussen in charge.

Seeing the arrival of bestselling histo-adventure writer Professor Pennyroyal as a sign that Anchorage must make its way to the long-believed radioactive wasteland that was once America, Freya asks the author, Tom and Hester to be her guests on the fanciful journey to discover surviving pockets of civilisation and enduring fauna. But all too soon relationships prosper and sour as secrets are kept and lies are told, and Anchorage is unaware that the predator city of Arkangel has been enlightened to their course and is closing in, hungry for resources – and that isn't even their biggest threat...

If Mortal Engines fell marginally fowl of origin story drudgery, Predator's Gold was free to soar into bold new territory, and this is a mighty inventive and colourful world. With an expansive range of characters who encompass every class from orhpaned royals to, erm, orphaned pickpockets, Reeve revels in a cast of full-bodied, three-dimensional players. Tom may be brave beyond his years, but he is by no means the angelic innocent hero figure you may expect from a young adult novel. He questions those around him and is unreserved in his judgements – even stooping so low as to wish his unfortunately-disfigured girlfriend wasn't so ugly, while encouraging unfaithful thoughts towards plump, pretty Freya.

Hester, meanwhile, is a bitter and understandably unconfident soul who makes horrendous snap decisions which I couldn't help but scream in disbelief at – she's hardly a prototypical fairytale princess, rather a real person, and it's refreshing to see a role model sulk and make mistakes. Devious shadow burglar Caul, too, is a complicated and well-rounded individual – a thief with a heart! Conversely, Pennyroyal was, unfortunately, a far too predictable red herring of a yellow belly, reminding me from the very outset as a Gilderoy Lockhart-type fraud (he of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets).

Published by Scholastic but clearly aimed at a more mature teen audience than their usual school-age output, I was pleasantly surprised to see Predator's Gold push the boundaries – scarcely 17 years of age, Tom and Hester don't hide the fact that they are lovers who share a bed and enjoy drinking wine, while Reeve also gets a kick out of painting many a disturbing and unexpectedly violent picture. It's never unnecessary or offensively heinous, but it certainly packs a winding narrative punch.


In a CR@B Shell: A rolling stone may gather no moss, but a rolling city definitely gathers gloss. A step-up from an inspired but satisfactory origin story, steampunk action sequel Predator's Gold is an exhilarating, unpredictable and emotionally diverse adventure which left me eager to pick up part three.
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Ape Alone Weak, Ape Together Strong

Cine Review: RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
12A – 105mins – 2011
Written by: Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver
Suggested by the novel by: Pierre Boulle
Directed by: Rupert Wyatt
Starring: James Franco, Andy Serkis, John Lithgow, Freida Pinto, Brian Cox, Tom Felton, David Oyelowo, Tyler Labine, Jamie Harris, David Hewlett
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[SPOILERS] I have been anticipating this film ever since it started production. The first trailer left me with goosebumps. This past fortnight I have been literally chimping at the bit for release day following a preparatory rewatch of all five of the original films in the franchise (Planet, Beneath, Escape, Conquest and Battle, click the links if you fancy checking out my saga review blitz) which has seen my impatience reach fever pitch and veer dangerously close to obsession.

After such personal hype, could remake/origin story Rise of the Planet of the Apes actually meet my ludicrously stratospheric expectations? After all, fans have been left disappointed by a twenty-first century reboot before, and in the grand scheme of things, Rupert Wyatt (best known for 2008's Brian Cox-starring The Escapist - yeah, me neither) is a comparative unknown for such a big project. Well, in the simplest terms possible: Yes, yes it could meet my expectations. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it surpassed them by some considerable distance. Welcome to the big league, Mr Wyatt.

Eschewing the already head-scratching and frequently-altered time travel set-up established in the earlier films (talking chimps Zira and Cornelius crash-landed on Earth in 1973 and by 1991 apes were being used as slaves before a game-changing revolt by offspring Caesar reduced New York to a radioactive wasteland), Rise sees present day neurologist Will Rodman (Franco) developing a cure to Alzheimer's by testing his experimental formulas on chimpanzee guinea pigs. Man messing with nature? Surely there's no harm in that...?

After a troublesome incident with test subject Bright Eyes, Will reluctantly saves her recently born son, christened Caesar (a motion-captured Serkis), from being put down. Smuggling him out of the lab, Caesar is raised at home alongside Will's Alzheimer-suffering father Charles (Lithgow). Over the course of the next eight years, Caesar – who has inherited his mother's genetically elevated level of intelligence, a beneficial acquirement gained from trial virus ALZ-112 – continues to advance above and beyond the capabilities of a "mere" primate.

But as Will's veterinarian girlfriend Caroline (Slumdog Millionaire's Pinto) warns, docile as Caesar may seem, chimps as a species are dangerous and unpredictable creatures who must be feared as much as loved. Advice worth heeding... Following a run-in with Will's dolt of a neighbour (Hewlett), Caesar is imprisoned in an ape sanctuary (read: borstal, replete with vindictive “warden” in the form of Tom “Draco Malfoy” Felton's assistant), where our favourite knuckle-dragger begins to lose his faith in mankind's benevolence, and – in a plot with strong correlations to Conquest before it – he is in the perfect location to rally his simian brethren to his cause. I smell a mutiny – or is that wet fur and faeces?

Smart, funny, intelligent, emotional, tense and eye-poppingly gorgeous (I could keep going with the superlatives), Rise is so much more than an air-headed CGI-crammed schlockbuster. Wyatt's film hits all the right buttons in a tonally perfect script aided by stunning WETA-crafted special effects which often make you forget you aren't watching real chimps. A scene in which a lonely and dejected Caesar scrapes a chalk replica of Will's attic window on the wall of his cell brought a genuine lump to my throat, while I couldn't suppress my glee at the pivotal turning point in his escape bid; you sympathise with him, you will him on in his fight against the injustices thrown his way, and – rather disconcertingly – you want him to bring humanity to its knees. I'm such a terrible human!

Speaking of humanity, Rise's homo sapien cast is capably adept, even if they are reduced to playing second fiddle to the simians stars: Franco doesn't over-state his staunch determination in the lead role, while Lithgow evokes compassion as his mental state deteriorates and Felton's Dodge Landon (his name a direct reference to Taylor's astronaut buddies from the original) riles you up as the generic bully of the piece. Pinto is the only superfluous role, Caroline scarcely effecting the plot beyond her “love interest” stereotype. But that's a negligible quibble in a film which scarcely put a paw out of place.

A multitude of callbacks, references and in-jokes are a nice touch for fans to smirk at knowingly (well, I did at any rate), from Caesar playing with a model of the Statue of Liberty, to numerous character names, dialogue riffs and allusions that the Icarus mission into Space (that which first takes Taylor to the planet of the apes in 1968) is blasting off simultaneous to the events here. Sure it's all background padding, but such frills add depth and colour to this universe which expands my admiration for an already first rate motion picture experience.

A subplot involving Will's successive batch of the revolutionary serum, ALZ-113, and its disastrous after-effects to human health is expanded in a mid-credit tag which suggests we haven't seen the last of this perennial series which fails to be put down. I for one cannot wait to see what the future holds for our planet of the apes – provided Tim Burton keeps his paws off. Hail Caesar!


In a CR@B Shell: I couldn't have asked for a more rich, powerful and engrossing Rise for these damn quality apes; I'm going to have franchise withdrawal symptoms now that I've reached the end – maybe it's time to invest in the short-lived 70's TV series to placate my primate obsession!
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Ready, Ape, Fire!

DVD Review: BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES
12 – 83mins – 1973
Story by: Paul Dehn
Screenplay by: Joyce Hooper Corrington and John William Corrington
Based on characters created by: Pierre Boulle
Directed by: J. Lee Thompson
Starring: Roddy McDowall, Claude Akins, Natalie Trundy, Austin Stoker, Paul Williams, Severn Darden, Lew Ayres, Bobby Porter, France Nguyen, Noah Keen, Richard Eastham, John Huston
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Generally, successful franchises which span multiple box office hits find that with each successive entry their budget inflates as technology becomes more advanced – not to mention cheaper to utilise – leading to glossier and more aesthetically pleasing (if not necessary better) final products. Battle for the Planet of the Apes – the fifth entry in the topsy-turvey sci-fi saga – does not follow this trend. A far smaller budget means a less stellar cast and compromises in special effects which, sadly, diminish the over-all effect of what would become the last theatrical release before the concept transferred to the small screen.

The most obvious drop in quality is the cheap-looking gorilla masks, highlighted all the more because bitter, human-hating military captain Aldo (Akins) has so much screen time as rival to ape “king” Caesar's (McDowall) crown. Battle picks up many years after the war which followed the simian revolt at Conquest's crucial cliffhanger climax. A nuclear detonation has reduced New York City to a skeletal wasteland with radioactive residue, leaving it uninhabitable (a nifty foreshadowing of the Forbidden Zone which Taylor and Brent found themselves lost in in the classic original and first sequel Beneath).

A smattering of the conquered humans – including brother to Conquest's chimp sympathiser, MacDonald (Stoker) and school teacher Abe (Keen) – are welcomed into the emerging Ape City to live (although not quite as equals, the cause of much consternation), while a reconnaissance mission by MacDonald, Caesar and orangutan wise-man Virgil (Williams) to gather recorded intel of Caesar's long-dead parents Zira and Cornelius (footage recycled from Escape) reveals a quarantined colony of mutated, radiation-poisoned human survivors living underground. As much as I couldn't abide the mutant sub-plot in Battle, further establishing the cult was a welcome attempt at rectifying a mistep.

Led by returning character Governer Kolp (Darden), the mutant dwellers see Caesar's trespassing in their colony as an act of war, and a ragtag force of gun-totting maniacs invade the divided ape community, leading to the eponymous battle – but how will the apes fair with Aldo caging-up the amiable humans and causing a rift in the ranks by injuring Caesar's child, Cornelius Jnr. (Porter), after the young ape overheard the gorilla's insidious plan to overthrow his passive leader? Will the apes stand united or fall divided?

The DVD cut I watched was, I have since discovered, severely edited. The US Blu-ray apparently rectifies this by using the definitive version, whereas the UK release, bizarrely, doesn't, instead including the additional footage as deleted scenes. At just 83mins, Battle is simply far too short (despite being the same length as its far superior predecessor) and its pacing does not help; whizzing by with very little of substance happening prior to the climatic fight. The first five minutes is wasted with overlong recaps of all previous entries, and a framing device confirming that the future is not set in stone features “The Great Lawgiver” (Huston), an oranutan who reads from the secret scrolls; clearly a desperate ploy to evoke comparison to the iconic Dr. Zaius.


In a CR@B Shell: Proffering a handful of neat touches which help both expand and knit together the centuries-spanning saga, alas Battle for the Planet of the Apes is far from the epic final bow such an iconic blockbuster series deserved. An admirable effort is ultimately let down by a lack of funds and an amateurish feel.
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