Planet Of The Apes
Directed by: Tim Burton
Written by: Pierre Boulle (novel), William Broyles Jr., Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter

Tim Burton is one of those directors you can usually trust to give you your money’s worth. He has a very distinct and exciting visual style that makes his films both original and fun. The thing is, he’s at his best when he is toiling under the spark of his own inspiration, and when he is basically given free reign over the production. When he gets someone else’s project handed over to him, especially a cult classic like Planet Of The Apes, well, then things become a bit more uncertain.

It’s clear that when you make a movie based on a sci-fi classic like this, you are often treading on holy ground. The cult fans can be your biggest supporters, or your worst enemies, so it’s not surprising that they chose to tread lightly with Planet Of The Apes.

This doesn’t mean that they changed very little about the film, however; in fact quite the opposite is true. But in this case, they tried to erase any and all expectations beforehand by insisting that it is a “re-imagining”, not a remake of Planet Of The Apes. “Hey if you spend your money to come see a movie called Planet Of The Apes and it ends up being nothing like the original, then don’t blame us!” That is a cop out if you ask me.

But then again, what’s the point of keeping everything the same either? It can be refreshing to get someone else’s take on an old concept.

It remains to be seen whether this is really anyone’s “take” on Planet Of The Apes, however. It seems like they tried very hard to distance themselves from the original, and changed a lot of things just for the sake of changing them, not because there was any one unifying vision behind it all.

Then, while they are trying to distance themselves from the original, they make direct references to it by reusing certain bits of dialogue, and “pay tribute” by giving Charleton Heston a cameo. This was cheesy, more than anything, and didn’t fit in. More than likely, they were just trying to sucker the cult fans into laying down their money for the flick.

I have a lot of complaints about the revised story they came up with for this movie. If you look at the best science fiction movies, they always tell stories that use a strange new world to make us stop and think about the world we actually live in.

Sure, there are plenty of sci-fi movies out there that are nothing more than fluff, and they can be fun too. The original Planet Of The Apes had a little something more behind it though, and this is why I am disappointed to see the new Planet Of The Apes movie fall into that fluff category.

In this movie, they seem to have dumbed down the ideas. Perhaps they think that today’s moviegoers are no smarter than apes ourselves. Everytime they bring up something that might make you think, they quickly gloss it over with some big fight scene or something. To put it simply, they missed the point.

The story also had a lot of inconsistencies that bothered me. Perhaps they will not bother you, but for a moment, allow me to get a few of these off my chest:

At the beginning of the movie, we meet Mark Wahlberg, who is a futuristic American space explorer of some sort. I’m not sure exactly what they are doing there to be honest. They send a trained chimpanzee out in a space capsule to investigate something, and he disappears. The ball gets rolling when Mark Wahlberg’s character goes out after the chimp. Now, hold it right there: why would they be using chimps for dangerous space travel in the first place? In the future, you’d think that they would have robots and computer systems that are capable of doing this (they have these things today). Even if the monkeys are “genetically enhanced”, as they state in the movie, it would be safer to control the ship remotely with computers. Right off the bat I felt shortchanged by the story.

My next complaint is the fact that he doesn’t crash land on Earth in this new movie, but rather, a whole different planet. This completely erases one of the important issues in the original movie: the fact that humans killed themselves off and destroyed their own civilization.

In the new POTA, the humans on the planet can talk. They are no different than you or I, or Mark Wahlberg. This obliterates the effect of the role reversal. We are given no real reason why apes should feel they are superior to humans. We are simply lead to believe that they are evil, and they oppress humans because they are strong and because they are mean. This is opposed to the original where humans are being oppressed because they are primitive creatures, clearly inferior to apes in terms of intellect and culture. In the original, you are sometimes made to identify with both the humans and the apes, and this is what made it interesting. In the new movie, we are never really given the opportunity to root for the apes.

The only ape that we are able to feel for is Helena Bonham Carter’s character, Ari. (A somewhat shoddy replacement for the scientists Cornelius and Zira from the original movie.) But her character doesn’t seem noble, only confused. Her motivation for siding with the humans is never really explained, so she just seems to be a young, naive ape with a sick fetish for humans.

Then there’s the issue of the ending, which has been the subject of much debate. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will tell you that it’s a “surprise” cliffhanger. One argument says that they are again “paying tribute” by keeping with Planet Of The Apes tradition. On the other hand, this ending lacks any sort of meaning or resonance, unlike the ending of the original. There’s no use in creating a superficial ending just for the sake of catching the audience off guard. It has to have a point. It also doesn’t seem far-fetched to think that they are setting things up for a sequel. If you ask me, that is just going too far.

One thing that made the movie worthwhile, however, was the special effects. If they could have had some of this technology back when the original was made, the movie could have been so much more effective. Having the actors walk like real apes, and making them learn the mannerisms of real apes created a very surreal experience for the viewer. I think they got carried away at times with the high flying fighting stuff though. Apes may be able to jump higher than humans, but I am not completely convinced that this is how they would fight.

Of course, the apes were a lot more intimidating this time around, which is perhaps a bit of an improvement on the original, where the apes didn’t seem like such a physical threat to the humans. Tim Roth’s character was definitely creepy; the way he spoke and moved scared the crap out of me. To once again look at the other side of the coin, however, this made the apes seem less like civilized creatures, and more like ferocious monsters, which prevented viewers from identifying with them in any way.

As for the rest of the actors, well, they were just sort of there. I was worried that Mark Wahlberg would ruin this movie, but I suppose he was well suited to the role. He had the sort of ignorant brashness to him that was necessary in order to believe he could actually go up against these bad ass apes. I think the movie would have been more powerful if we actually felt for him though. The farewell scenes at the end were supposed to be touching, but instead turned out to be laughable (or gross, if you were the annoying teenage girl sitting behind me in the theatre). Charleton Heston’s performance in the original may have been melodramatic, but it certainly felt more convincing than Wahlberg’s tough guy persona.

So how does Tim Burton fit into this mess? Well considering what he had to work with, he did a pretty good job. He doesn’t seem to be able to keep a consistent style throughout the movie though. Some might say he is inexperienced and the wrong man to direct an action film, but let’s not forget, the man directed Batman! There was definitely a dark feel to the movie, and a cool Danny Elfman score, but there weren’t really many things that jumped out and said “Hey, this is a Tim Burton film.” It does seem like perhaps he was held back by something. It’s a shame, but I guess that’s Hollywood for you.

Oh, there is one thing I should mention… You see, I am a little ashamed to admit that I was kind of falling asleep for a while there in the middle of the movie. I mention this not because I want to stress how boring the movie was (it wasn’t, I just happened to be really tired), but because I feel I should put a bit of a disclaimer on this review. Some of my complaints may be rendered null and void because I happened to miss an important part of the story. However, from the discussions I’ve had with other people who saw the movie, I still feel that the points made in this review are mostly valid.

So was this new take on POTA refreshing? I guess so. I may have a lot of complaints about it, but it’s not like it tainted the original or anything like that. The original is still there, as it has been for the past 30 years or so, and can still be enjoyed if anyone desires to do so. It’s a new take on an old classic that is worth checking out for curiosity’s sake. But again, you can’t help comparing this to the original, and the fact remains: there is no comparison. And as a Tim Burton movie, well, it’s not really all that it could have been.

I just keep thinking, if you’re going to “re-imagine” a movie, the least you can do is actually use some imagination.

Ultimately, I can only offer a word of warning about Planet Of The Apes. Don’t get your hopes up. Although it’s not a bad movie, it was kind of a disappointment. But I guess if you’re just looking for a fun summer blockbuster with cool special effects and some decent action, then you’re probably landing on the right planet. — Sean