This time around, astronaut Brent ( James Fransiscus - virtually a Charlton Heston clone) on a mission to discover and hopefully rescue lost astronaut Taylor finds himself in similar deep waters as his vessel goes into time warp. Brent and his ailing crewmember land up on a blighted earth way into the future where man has had his chance and blown it.

Brent arrives on ape controlled earth to find them in the midst of the worst kind of jingoistic warmongering. The ape's have had it with the mutinous human race and are about to launch a holy war to seek out and destroy the last of the hidden human's deep within the tracts of the underground. As the Apes advance, Brent and Nova (she who survived the first movie) run for cover and end up discovering a colony of mutated humans who live in fear and hatred of the apes ruling the land above. These bizarre mutated humans preach to a god they believe will ultimately help protect them against all potential attackers. They believe in the supreme power of the "deterrent" as their primary means of survival. These ESP capable mutants believe that by creating visual gimmicks that mimic or "ape" realism, they can trick their opponents into retreat.

Clearly this is a movie reflecting the period in which it was created….the late 60's with America reeling from Anti-War and anti racism sentiments with the Peace movement beginning to seriously kick in. The other preoccupation in American minds was the eternal Commie threat that they felt was just about to swallow up the entire planet at any second. The deterrence theory, which so dominated the Cold War era, clearly has an enormous influence on the theme of the movie. According to this movie, deterrence is merely a deception and can be seen straight through……it don't work!

If you thought the first film was downbeat and nihilistic with its ultra bleak ending, this one takes things even further with an almost encore of the disasters the first time around. There are strong underlying ethical undercurrents, many of them reflecting the hardcore, rightwing sentiment that predominated in the US during the era. The film attempts to infuse some liberalism, but ultimately comes across as a pat on the back for the rightist cause. As a thriller, its passable, yet with its slightly cheesy special effects and irritatingly jarring music score, it comes across quite a bit like an episode of a long running serial, which I suppose in many ways one can say The Planet of the Apes films became.

Charlton Heston makes reappearance in this movie and has the last laugh, if you can call it that. Its not at all a bad movie, just a tad heavy handed….best as an excellent allegory of the type of political psyche that gripped America and the "Free World" during the dark, heady days of the Cold War. Some of the best scenes are also the most bizarre (trust Ted Post who directed the strangefest The Baby) featuring the mutated humans holding a service to preach their beloved god, an Atomic Bomb! Some of those hymns are worth the entry money alone - very bizarre indeed.