Planet of the Apes (2001)

By Jason Haskins

The original Planet of the Apes was released in 1968 and starred sir Charlton Heston. Not only was it received well for its intriguing sci-fi/fantasy story based on the book by Pierre Boulle and co-adapted by Rod Serling, it won achievements in makeup effects (for the apes) and made back its budget five-fold. The impact is still around today where we have heaps of sequels strewn everywhere, but in this author's lovely opinion nothing matches the sheer awesomeness and freshness of the original film.

Fast forward to 2001 when the remake came out to critical pans across the board. That certainly didn't stop it from making a crap load of money, but what's weird is that no new sequel was announced since then because of how poorly the word of mouth was about this film and the overall reception. That all changes today with the release of Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Mark Wahlberg plays the famous Heston role as Leo Davidson as a scientist on a space station working closely with primates on outer space missions. When his favorite little chimp friend goes missing on a mission through this worm hole-type thing, he disobeys his commands and follows to try and rescue it. Little does he know that he's entered a new reality and has landed on a planet run by, you guessed it, APES. Not only that, but these apes dominate the whole realm with humans being the animals--mistreated and in slavery.

He bands together an alliance to try and get equilibrium around the place, but an ape who's making it hard is the General Thade (Tim Roth) who's a military commander who wants full control over the area as well as the love of another chimp-girl (Helena Bonham Carter) who's actual bananas for Leo. Talk about inter-species erotica. Either way, there's a war on the rise between the human uprising and the apes being led by this sadistic Thade and one thing's for certain: nothing will be the same for either side and Leo still needs to face whether he wants to go home or stay on the planet of the apes.

Burton and company took the original screenplay of the '68 film and sort of churned it to fit their own agenda. There's a lot of "stylized" action and subplots that don't really go anywhere as well as a boring sort of pace that chugs along for two hours. It also addresses more of the satire of the story in less subtle ways than the original--as if its spoon-feeding it's message to the audience, which I thought was weird. That said, the movie is still watchable especially if you dig the Planet of the Apes films, but the overall story is full of mediocre ploys at emotion, bland characters (save for Ari played by Carter), and an ending far removed from the original's--and frustratingly confusing.

Mark Wahlberg is an eye and ear-sore as well (ew, that sounds gross). His acting stinks up the movie and whether or not that's the fault of the direction, script, or all three is hard to know. There are so many bad lines he has to wade through, but he does so in this really uber-macho lame fashion that had me sort of detached from his character being heroic. A lot of the performances are all across the board including Michael Clarke Duncan's as this big lumbering gorilla guy and Paul Giamatti who plays the scummy orangutan Limbo (added for comic relief). Kris Kristofferson is also in the film briefly, but two performances I thought were really good were performed by Carter (who brought a lot of soul to the picture as Ari) and Tim Roth as Thade, who's not only terrifying, but gives the movie its main piece of appeal.

While the makeup effects are certainly pretty good at some moments--especially with Thade, who you don't realize is pretty-boy Roth, some of the special effects are pretty mediocre. Some moments have you digging where Burton is taking you, while other times have you wondering where all of the special effects money went because of the cookie-cut-out sets and poor cinematography.

Truth be told this is not a Burton-esque movie with a heavy gothic/expressionistic atmosphere and it seems to be one of the few movies he's done without his signature stamp on it...but Danny Elfman returns for the soundtrack--ironically not as pounding or interesting as the original's provided by Jerry Goldsmith. Burton's direction is also very lacking. A lot of the action is left muted because of how boring and bland the shots were. There's not a whole lot of movement and it makes the length of the film seem longer. You know there's a problem when the action parts are a bit boring.

Tim Burton probably has fond memories of this picture. He fell in love with Helena Bonham Carter while filming it...while it was a critical failure it netted them a lot of money...but at the end of the day it's disappointing by a lot of various aspects--most importantly Burton's direction and how he handled some of the quirks of the screenplay. At the end of the day this isn't as memorable as the original and if I were to watch one or the other again...it would, of course, be Heston's (did I tell you he makes a cameo in this?) version because it has the soul and depth I'm looking for.

2001's Planet of the Apes felt like a more by-the-numbers remake in order to maximize the name of Planet of the Apes for a new generation, but it didn't do so well. We can only have high hopes for the newest Apes picture and hope that they learned from some of the mistakes here. However, I still will say it's not as bad of a stinker as everyone was making this out to be...and it did have its enjoyable moments. Is it still terrible? Yes. If it ain't broken then why fix it? The original reigns supreme.

1 out of 5 stars

© Jason Haskins, 2011

Be sure to check out Paco's review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes.