Beneath The Planet Of The Minkeys

While no where near as good as the 1968 original, the sequel Beneath The Planet Of The Apes has some strong ideas and a fresh enough take on the concept to make this a follow up worth checking out. James Franciscus gets to relive the first movie as the astronaut who travels through time and space to discover a planet ruled by simians. As with the original, although much faster, he soon encounters Lina Harrison's Nova (dude, I filled the cup) and Kim Hunter's chimp scientist Zira, before heading off to discover he's landed on a far future Planet Earth. So remake, so good.

It's the second half where things get interesting as Franciscus encounters some future humans, all mind powers and mutanty, who worship an end-of-the-world, doomsday missile. Then the minkeys turn up, so does Charlton Heston, and things go boobies up for the memorable apocalyptic ending (in an failed attempt to out-shock the original). Civilization's obsession with war and destruction is explored, both from the humans and the apes point of view, and it's a much shorter, much faster paced film than it's predecessor, but this isn't in the same league. A worthy sequel though.