Ape World Exodus

Ape World Exodus (1989) was the fifth and (so far) last in the Ape World film series, and marked the major motion picture debut of director Timothy Burton. Part of its avowed purpose was to bring an end to the films series, which it did. Fans generally dispute over its overall quality. Some look upon the film as the crowning conclusion of the epic, while others claim it an incoherent mess that does not fit with other entries in the series.

Taking place several years after Ape World Apocalypse, the film takes place in a revamped Chicago in which Humans and Apes are trying to live in peace with one another. Their nascent civilization is attracting those in search of a good life, but all seems to go terribly wrong when a few children enter into the Scarlet Zone--an area of old Chicago deemed unsafe. Legends have grown up around the place, and the children (including Adam, the son of Francis and Oona) discover a vast ice cave where a robot called EZ-2B has gone slowly mad over the millennia. Grilling them about the outside world, EZ-2B decides "his" duty is to kill or freeze all the adults and raise the children to live together in peace (since they seem to get along). Human and Ape are forced to unite against this otherworldly threat, with the captive children crucially managing to damage the robot's power-source.

Opinions differ about the tone of the film, which many describe as "darkly whimsical." Although eventually earning a perfectly respectable profit, this Ape World movie was seen as the most problematical. It enjoys a cult following but Wolff Studios declined to finance any further sequels, the official explanation being the series "had exhausted the viable story possibilities."