Not all Apes are created equal. From 1968’s Planet of the Apes to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes , now in theaters, here’s how the franchise stacks up.
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8. Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)
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The original Planet of the Apes franchise benefits greatly from nostalgia: The truth is, it's mostly pretty weak, aside from the stellar first installment and some delightful camp moments peppered throughout. Battle for the Planet of the Apes is the clear nadir, a thoroughly disappointing conclusion to an arc that began with tremendous potential and quickly fell into mediocrity. The fifth film follows Caesar (Roddy McDowall) as he struggles to maintain a peaceful society where humans and apes live together. While all the sequels suffer from the problem of a foregone conclusion — we know how this story ends — the last one especially drags its feet toward the obvious.
There are some interesting ideas here, at least: Caesar and his wife Lisa (Natalie Trundy) discuss the necessity of violence, all while Caesar deals with an aggressive gorilla general, Aldo (Claude Akins), who demands a more militaristic response to humans. But the most recent film in the franchise, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, does a much, much better job with the same themes, making Battle look all the more embarrassing in comparison. Add to that some truly boring action sequences and an absurdly terrible final shot — a statue of Caesar crying a single tear — and you have the worst Apes film ever made.
7. Planet of the Apes (2001)
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