Subject: Review: Planet of the Apes (2001)

From: Jon Popick <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 23:50:08 -0000

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As cheesy as the original Planet of the Apes film is, it sets a pretty high
cinematic bar.  It'd be easy to outdo the special effects and best the
acting, but tackling the infamous Statue of Liberty ending is an entirely
different story.  Duplicating or removing it would be a cop-out, and
changing it virtually guarantees the new version won't be any good (it'd be
like making Rosebud a woman in a Citizen Kane remake).

While the new ending is a little clunky (and a lot predictable), director
Tim Burton does, for the most part, a pretty decent job with his
"revisitation" of Apes.  It's probably the most un-Burton-esque film he has
made, relying more on special effects, makeup and costume than his typically
stunning visual presentation.  Apes is a rare remake that is shorter than
its predecessor, and one that doesn't cast actors from the
original...because most of them are dead (aside from Charlton Heston, who is
dead only between his ears, and makes a brief appearance here).  There are
enough differences to make this film unique (for better or for worse), but
it's also similar enough to avoid sending diehard Ape fans into nerd comas.

Apes opens in 2029 inside a research station just outside Saturn.  Mark
Wahlberg (The Perfect Storm) plays Leo Davidson, a pilot chomping at the bit
to fly into an electrical storm (didn't Wahlberg learn to stay away from
storms last summer?), but a space chimp is tapped to make the journey before
any human lives are risked.  When the monkey's pod disappears, Leo takes off
after it, despite the orders to stop from his commanding officer.  Sure
enough, Leo's pod vanishes into a Contact-like wormhole that spits him out
several hundred years later as he crashes into a strange planet ruled by
apes.

Like the first film, there are humans on the planet, but they can talk and
have more interaction with their monkey overlords, who act a lot more simian
than they did in the original.  Some humans are slaves, some are kept as
pets and some have even been molded into butlers, but the apes are firmly in
control of things despite their apparent lack of ability to invent stuff
beyond rudimentary weapons and armor.  There are no guns, no doctors and
generally no knowledge of what lies over the mountain in The Forbidden Zone.

While Wahlberg's Leo is clearly crafted in the same mold as Charlton
Heston's Colonel Taylor, the only ape character that makes the evolutionary
leap from 1968 to 2001 is Ari, played by Fight Club's Helena Bonham Carter
(her ancestor was Dr. Zira, which is almost Ari spelled backward).  Ari, the
rebellious daughter of a senator and the ex-lover of the evil General Thade
(Tim Roth, Lucky Numbers), leads the Human Rights Faction and, for some
reason, develops an instant bond with Leo.

With a few exceptions, the second act follows the original film pretty
closely and finds Leo, his hot human squeeze (Estella Warren, Driven), Ari
and a handful of others trying to make it into The Forbidden Zone while
being chased by the gorilla army (led by Michael Clarke Duncan, See Spot
Run). But as things degenerate into Braveheart (Apeheart?) or, worse yet,
The 13th Warrior, it becomes clear this film is working its way to a more
upbeat resolution, which kind of blows, and, coming from Burton, is just
plain disappointing.  Yeah, there's a twist, but you can see it coming from
a mile away (assuming you know how the first film ended).

One major improvement in the film is the appearance of the apes.  Rick
Baker's (Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas) creatures look amazing
and can show much more emotion in their faces.  But nearly all of the apes
sound like a bunch of people with fake teeth awkwardly jammed into their
mouths (which is what they all are, but still).  Another minor effects
complaint is the over-the-top jumping skills of the chimps.  I can overlook
the fact that it's preposterous, but the editing of these scenes leaves a
little to be desired.  You never once see a clean landing, instead getting a
jumpy edit. It's like throwing a dummy off a cliff and then having an actor
pop into the shot from the bottom.

Apes, based on Pierre Boulle's novel, only scratches the surface of the
complex racial issues and battles over religion versus science that made the
first film such a treat.  The screenplay, from William Broyles, Jr. (Cast
Away), Lawrence Konner and Mark D. Rosenthal (Mighty Joe Young), does riff
on a few of the original's more popular lines, and includes more children
and teenage characters, both ape and human.  What's more amazing is the
inclusion of a swimming scene for Warren, who got to breaststroke in Driven,
too (she used to be a synchronized swimmer).

Maybe it's because half of the actors were buried under latex (or because
there's no Johnny Depp), but Apes seems like Burton's least actor-driven
film.  There's no weird cross-species chemistry between Wahlberg and Bonham
Carter, but there isn't any between him and Warren, either.  Roth sounds
nothing like himself but becomes a wonderful snarling antagonist.  If chimps
had moustaches, he'd be twirling his.  Danny Elfman's (Proof of Life) score
reaches its peak during the opening credits, never factors into the rest of
the film, and never equals the unmistakable power of Jerry Goldsmith's
original.

1:47 - PG-13 for some sequences of action/violence

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