Beneath the Planet of the Apes (5 Stars)

This is the best film of the original Planet of the Apes pentalogy. Yes, that's the correct word to describe a sequence of five films, even though my spell checker doesn't recognise it. The words "trilogy" and "quadrilogy" are more commonly used, but guess what? The word "quadrilogy" doesn't exist. It was incorrectly used by the film industry in recent years, for instance to describe the Batman Quadrilogy. The correct word for a sequence of four films is "tetralogy", also not recognised by my spell checker, and I'll make sure I remind my readers of it at every possible opportunity. I love the English language, and I like to use it correctly. Sure, changes occur over the course of time, but I intend to resist change for as long as possible. I don't mind new words being invented for new technology, such as "internet" or "email", but there's no need to change the spelling of existing words or invent new words for old matters. "Quadrilogy" is out, "tetralogy" is in. In the past I've accepted American variations, out of respect to my cousins on the other side of the Atlantic, but no more. Americans can pronounce words any way they like, but they have to spell them correctly. "Color" is wrong. "Learned" is wrong. I don't care what they teach in American schools, I went to an English school and I learnt the correct way to spell "colour". Thankfully they still teach correct spelling in Canada.

I also reject the word "Moslem" being spelt "Muslim". This is a recent change, dating back less than 40 years. Before then "Muslim" was used as an unofficial transliteration of the original Arabic word, but nobody doubted that the correct spelling of the English word was "Moslem". This change has been forced by the Moslem lobby for idealistic reasons. The problem is that the word "Moslem", when pronounced as it's spelt, "mozz-lem", is an Arabic word that means an evil, unjust person. And so Moslems object to the spelling. What idiots! That's just about the most stupid thing I've ever heard. So it's not enough for them to crash planes and murder those who think differently to themselves, they have to attempt to destroy the beautiful English language. I say No. I shall continue to call you Moslems. I don't mean the word as an insult, so if you feel offended by it it's your problem.

Now back to the film. It continues directly where the first film ended. There's even a recap of the first film's ending, or rather an overlap, as there was in "Halloween 2". In the second film we learn that the apes are not the only intelligent beings remaining on the Earth. There are some slight illogical matters in the plot, which don't detract from the quality of the film, but I'm pedantic enough to name them here. A team of astronauts has been sent from Earth two years later to look for Taylor and his crew. Since Taylor had been sent on a 700 year mission, why was this deemed necessary? But this film succeeds by showing us more of the ape civilisation, fleshing out the skimpy overview we were given in the first film. Excellent. The films should have ended here, making this a duology. But they were both box office successes, and the third film followed. And the fourth. And the fifth.....