[7]

Dogs and cats have been wiped out in a plague and apes have replaced them as pets. More like slaves, actually. Conquest is the least feasible scenario in the original Apes saga, but if you can swallow the setup, the movie turns out to be another solid sci-fi flick. Roddy McDowall returns, not as Cornelius (who died in the last movie), but as his son Caesar. Caesar has been raised by Armando (Ricardo Montalban), the kindly circus owner we met in the last film. The movie begins with Armando relinquishing Caesar to a government-run ape training facility. McDowall gives his best performance from the Apes movies. Caesar starts out as a frightened orphan, but he’s transformed by the violence and torture he sees at the facility. He begins a revolution and leads the apes to freedom in a bloody revolt staged by director J. Lee Thompson (The Guns of Navarone).

Conquest is a dark film that almost received an “R” rating. In fact, the movie ends with several gorillas beating a man to death while Caesar promises an end to all of mankind. It’s probably too dark to satisfy younger fans of the franchise, but Conquest continues a tradition of allegorical science fiction that reflects the turbulent time in which it was made.