--- title: "Battle for the Planet of the Apes" year: 1973 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/battle-for-the-planet-of-the-apes" fi1m_score: 36 critics_score: 29 critics_reviews: 8 published: "2026-09-19T16:48:12.916821+00:00" updated: "2026-09-19T16:48:13.176065+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) Directed by J. Lee Thompson · 1h 33m · MPA G · Action, Science Fiction **Fi1m score: 36** · Critics 29 from 8 reviews *In a sentence:* The end of the world, staged in a wood by a dozen extras in pull-over masks > The fifth and last of the original Apes films arrives with the budget gone and the ideas mostly gone with it. Roddy McDowall holds it together from behind the mask, but the battle of the title is a scuffle in a wood. ## Synopsis Years after the ape uprising and the war that followed it, Caesar (Roddy McDowall) rules a settlement of huts and orchards where apes and the surviving humans live side by side, apes a step above. His wife Lisa (Natalie Trundy) and son Cornelius (Bobby Porter) want the peace kept; the gorilla general Aldo (Claude Akins) wants the humans gone and says so at every council. Caesar’s human aide MacDonald (Austin Stoker) tells him that recordings of his parents survive in the archives of the Forbidden City, the bombed capital beyond the hills. Against Aldo’s objections, Caesar decides to go and find them, taking MacDonald and the orangutan scholar Virgil (Paul Williams) with him. ## Review Paul Dehn’s story wants to end the series on a kinder note than the four films before it managed. J. Lee Thompson, who directed [*Conquest of the Planet of the Apes*](https://film.one/film/conquest-of-the-planet-of-the-apes) (1972), picks up some years after that film’s riot. The bombs have fallen, the cities are ash, and Caesar (Roddy McDowall) has built a village where apes and humans farm and argue together, with the humans a step below. The question the film asks is whether the future the first picture showed us is fixed or can be argued out of. That is a good question. The film has 93 minutes to answer it and spends most of them on horseback. McDowall is the reason to stay. He has played this ape across two films now and knows how to act through the appliance: the tilt of the head, the way Caesar’s hands go still when he is angry. There is a scene in the ruined city where he sits at a console and listens to his dead parents’ voices on tape, and we were moved more than we expected to be by a man in rubber staring at a reel-to-reel. It is the one moment where the film’s idea, that a leader might want to know his own history before making anyone else’s, is felt rather than stated. Severn Darden’s Kolp, running his underground garrison in a greatcoat and a permanent sneer, is good value too, and Paul Williams gives the orangutan Virgil a fussy warmth the script does not otherwise provide. Lew Ayres appears for one scene as Mandemus, who keeps the armoury, and lectures everyone about guns with such gravity that we rather wished he had been given the film. Then there is the money, and there is not much of it. Ape City is a dozen thatched huts on a hillside. The Forbidden City is a few blocks of rubble and a corridor. Morton Haack’s costumes are the tunics of the earlier films, and they still look right on the principals, but in the wide shots the extras wear pull-over masks that do not move when they speak and have no eyes behind them, and the film keeps cutting to them. Richard H. Kline shoots the whole thing in flat midday sun, so nothing is hidden. In the ruins he manages a few frames of grey dust and long shadow that suggest what a properly funded film might have looked like, and then we are back in the wood. The battle of the title arrives late and is over quickly. Jeeps drive into a clearing, apes drop out of trees, men in fatigues fall over. Alan Jaggs and John C. Horger cut it so that we are seldom sure where anyone is standing, and the second half of the fight is the first half with different extras. We were bored, and then we were embarrassed for the stunt performers in their loose masks, and then we were bored again. Leonard Rosenman scores it with bugles and snare drums, a march that promises a scale the picture never reaches. John William Corrington and Joyce Hooper Corrington’s screenplay is mostly council meetings. Apes sit in a circle and say what they believe; humans stand at the edge and say what they are not allowed to believe; Claude Akins’s gorilla general Aldo bellows that apes should rule and is told to sit down. The one sharp idea is small: in Caesar’s village a human may not say the word “no” to an ape, and the schoolroom scene in which Noah Keen’s teacher says it anyway has more tension than the battle. The film knows this is its best scene and does nothing with it. [*Planet of the Apes*](https://film.one/film/planet-of-the-apes) (1968) ended on a beach with an image nobody who saw it has forgotten. *Conquest* had anger in it, a riot that felt like a riot. This one has a hopeful speech and a fight in a field, and the hope is not earned because we have not seen the two sides do anything together but quarrel. Fans of the series will want to see how it ends, and they should, once, in an afternoon, with low expectations. The tagline calls it the most suspenseful showdown ever filmed. Somebody in the publicity department had not seen the film, or had, and decided to be kind. *Fi1m score 36, published 19 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews are close to unanimous: this is the weakest of the original five films. The complaints cluster on money. A cut budget shows in the make-up, the battle footage and the locations, and several critics call the result cheap and perfunctory. The script draws almost as much fire: too much talk, a knotted plot, continuity that does not hold, and a lighter tone that several feel drains the series of the satire that carried the earlier entries. What praise there is goes to Roddy McDowall, whose performance is singled out as solid amid the constraints. The spread is narrow, with seven of eight negative. The one mixed notice, from Collider, credits Thompson’s atmospheric direction and the attempt at a hopeful ending, while finding the film fails to earn it. Roger Ebert goes furthest the other way, calling it incompetently made, with ragged transitions and inaudible dialogue. Radio Times concedes fans may still enjoy it. ### Reviews we read (8) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (**): The final effort is limp, though the previous films maintained quality longer; notes the plot elements and cast including Roddy McDowall and Claude Akins. [Read](https://variety.com/1972/film/reviews/battle-for-the-planet-of-the-apes-1200423075/) - **Empire**, Ian Nathan (20/100, inferred): The critic finds it a limp and humourless B-movie that has abandoned the series' satirical verve, with too much talk, a knotted plot, clunky action, and unconvincing make-up due to budget cuts. They conclude it should be buried in the Forbidden Zone as it lacks the charm and intelligence of the others. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/battle-planet-apes-review/) - **Radio Times**, Alan Jones (1/5): The critic calls it the least effective entry in the original Planet of the Apes series, with Roddy McDowall leading an attempt to restore racial harmony amid cheap production values and a lack of novelty or strong story. Endless action fails to disguise the threadbare monkey business, though fans of the franchise may still enjoy it. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-lke6qe/battle-for-the-planet-of-the-apes/) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (10/100, inferred): The critic finds the film incompetently made with ragged transitions, inaudible dialogue, cheap battle footage, and a thin story, calling it the last gasp of a dying series made only to extract money from remaining fans. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/battle-for-the-planet-of-the-apes-1973) - **Collider**, Matt Goldberg (C+): The critic finds that the film attempts a hopeful tone after the series' prior pessimism but fails to earn it, falling short of its aspirations in themes, execution, and decisive conclusions despite some atmospheric direction by Thompson and thoughtful moments. [Read](https://collider.com/battle-for-the-planet-of-the-apes-review/) - **Film Stories**, A J Black (40/100, inferred): The film is a cheap-looking forest romp that fails to deliver on its epic ambitions due to limited resources and direction. It marks the end of the original series amid poor reception and low box office. [Read](https://filmstories.co.uk/features/planet-of-the-apes-revisiting-the-unique-1970s-sequels/) - **Den of Geek**, Don Kaye (30/100, inferred): The critic views the film as the weakest and most perfunctory entry in the original five-film series, hampered by a low budget, unfocused script, and a shift toward a lighter tone that diluted its potential. They single out the ambitious but unrealized elements from the original treatment and the solid performance by Roddy McDowall as highlights amid the production constraints. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/how-battle-for-the-planet-of-the-apes-ended-a-franchise/) - **HeyUGuys**, Cai Ross (30/100, inferred): The low-budget sequel struggles with continuity issues and illogical plotting while attempting to wrap up the series. It comes across as a bare-bones effort lacking the imagination or intensity of prior entries. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/planet-of-the-apes-history/) ## Details - **Director:** J. Lee Thompson - **Director:** J. Lee Thompson - **Screenplay:** Joyce Hooper Corrington, John William Corrington - **Story:** Paul Dehn - **Cinematography:** Richard H. Kline - **Editor:** Alan Jaggs, John C. Horger - **Music:** Leonard Rosenman - **Costume design:** Morton Haack - **Producer:** Arthur P. Jacobs - **Cast:** Roddy McDowall as Caesar; Natalie Trundy as Lisa; Austin Stoker as MacDonald; Severn Darden as Kolp; Claude Akins as Aldo; Paul Williams as Virgil; Richard Eastham as Mutant; Lew Ayres as Mandemus - **Runtime:** 1h 33m - **Certificate (MPA):** G - **Release (the US):** 15 June 1973 - **Genres:** Action, Science Fiction - **Budget:** $2 million - **Box office:** $9 million ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, hd - Apple TV: buy $19.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-19.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HR, HU, IE, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TR, UA, US, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Planet of the Apes* (1968), Fi1m 84: Where it began, with a script that argues and a beach nobody forgets — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/planet-of-the-apes.md) - *Conquest of the Planet of the Apes* (1972), Fi1m 73: Thompson and McDowall the year before, with money, anger and a riot that lands — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/conquest-of-the-planet-of-the-apes.md) - *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* (2011), Fi1m 80: The same story of a clever ape and a cage, told with the resources this one lacked — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/rise-of-the-planet-of-the-apes.md) - *A Boy and His Dog* (1975): Another cheap Seventies apocalypse, this one nasty, funny and genuinely strange - *Le Dernier Combat* (1983): Besson’s wordless, black-and-white ruin, proof that no budget need not mean no ideas --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. 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