Escape from the Planet of the Apes

1971 "Meet baby Milo who has Washington terrified."
6.3| 1h38m| G| en| More Info
Released: 20 May 1971 Released
Producted By: 20th Century Fox
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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The world is shocked by the appearance of three talking chimpanzees, who arrived mysteriously in a spacecraft. Intrigued by their intelligence, humans use them for research - until the apes attempt to escape.

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Director

Don Taylor

Production Companies

20th Century Fox

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Escape from the Planet of the Apes Audience Reviews

Actuakers One of my all time favorites.
Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.
Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows
a_chinn The third film in the Apes series takes a new twist by not having humans crash land on a planet ruled by apes and instead has three apes crash land on modern day earth (or at least 1970s earth). The talking, intelligent apes become the toast of the town upon their arrival, but there are sinister government forces who fear them and believe them to be a threat to humanity. After a lot of light comedy during the first part of the film, the apes go on the run from the government agents who want to kill them. Escape is one of the weaker Apes film, but it is interesting that the villains of the picture are actually correct (if you've seen the other films in the series) in that the apes do eventually take over the world, although it's humanity's fault, due to their own fear and distrust. However, those more interesting of topics are not covered in this film and it is instead a fish-out-of-water comedy for the first and second acts and a not especially exciting of chase film for the final act. The first "Planet of the Apes" film, written by Rod Serling, more interestingly addressed this idea of who's the real bad-guy in the original film's conclusion, where the villainous Dr. Zaius is revealed to know the truth behind humankind destroying itself, and that intelligent humans would genuinely pose a threat to the Ape world, as unequal, backwards, and flawed as that society may be. Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter return as Cornelius and Zira, and you also get Albert Salmi, M. Emmet Walsh, Ricardo Montalban in a nice cameo leading to sequels to come, and Sal Mineo briefly appearing as an ape (he apparently did not like the ape make-up and asked to be written out of the script). Jerry Goldsmith also returns to provide the film an excellent rousing score. Overall, this isn't that good of an Apes film, but it is still entertaining.
gavin6942 The world is shocked by the appearance of three talking chimpanzees, who arrived mysteriously in a U.S. spacecraft. They become the toast of society, but one man believes them to be a threat to the human race.The "Apes" series gets more strange as it goes on, and the messages it uses are a bit blunt. We get environmental issues and political topics, sometimes with a discussion of race that is pretty blunt (the whole slavery thing is not subtle at all).This one even has religious themes, though they do actually hide those somewhat well. It may be blasphemous to compare the president to Herod the Great and Cornelius to Joseph (father of Jesus), but this film goes there. And it is actually pretty clever.
tankace Well after the critical under performance of Beneath the Planet of the Apes, we go to Escape,when in the today's world (seventies) a spacecraft crash lands and three talking chimpanzees come out, the two are Zira and Cornelius from the first two films. I have to say this film is weird and the creators definitely knew that and so the whole thing is a examinations of our ape heroes and their origin, which is surprising both thoughtful and interesting pointing out also the predestination paradox, theories of who a civilization is created and then more or less forgets its origins, which is not uncommon, see the Greek, Hindu, Egyptian and Chinese civilizations, they existed for so long that even they have little to no clue how they came to be. Also we see the beginning of the humans anxiety correlated with the seeming danger of them been replaced by the smart apes. So this film is both a sequel and a prequel and it is difficult putting the time-line in order. Again we see another repeat of history here, with the X-men films, another franchise in which the time-line of events is fussy to say the least and flipping confusing to be brutally honest.Overall an enjoyable film and by default in the top 3 of the original trilogy as the previous installment and Battle aren't very good as movies overall.
AaronCapenBanner This third Apes film has certain things going for it, like fine performances from returning actors Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter(as Cornelius and Zira) who really do make you care about them, and whose ultimate fate in "our time" is quite tragic.Trouble is, the way they got here,(a brilliant Ape scientist somehow salvaged Taylor's ship, repaired the damaged circuitry(despite there being no electronic parts in their world!) then got it refueled and launched into space(!?) all just before their Earth is destroyed(Sure!) has got to be the most contrived, implausible plot device in the history of Cinema, not to mention the biggest coincidence ever put on film, and ask a gullible audience to buy! Still, this film does have its fans, I just cannot get past such a whopper of a plot device that the writer wants the viewer to swallow.Even worse, this undermines and cheapens the ending to "Beneath", which did not warrant a sequel. Best to either ignore this, or look at it as occurring in a parallel time line. Only then does this become remotely tolerable...