Dave2112
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(Please note that several plot points are given away by this review. If you haven’t seen it yet, you may not want to read this. For those of you who are old enough to remember the original, I hope this serves to save you $24.95 on a DVD you’ll probably watch once.)
When the remake of “Planet of the Apes” was announced, I spent long months in anticipation. Coming from the generation that spawned the original film (and the unnecessary sequels), I was looking forward to seeing what modern technology could do with such a concept. I missed the chance to see it in it’s limited theatrical run, so I had to further wait for the DVD release.
Now I’ll wait another 30 years for a GOOD remake.
The problem with this movie is not the filmmaking itself, so let’s start with the good points. This film is visually stunning. Tim Burton made it in his usual dark image, the scenery and sets having both a familiar and alien feel about them at the same time. The make-up was wonderful, and the mannerisms of the Apes were more “ape-like” than in the original, where the actors moved about as if they actually WERE men in monkey-suits. They climb across their ceilings, sniff each other in greeting and have all the traits of apes that have evolved into a sentient species. A very cool scene with a fat old aristocrat and his young trophy wife preparing for bed showed the beast still at the surface of these creatures, a veiled jab at man’s sometimes animalistic relationship with sex.
The problem with this film is the pace and the believability itself. Tim Burton spent so much energy on creating the aforementioned atmosphere (and no doubt putting his own indelible stamp on it) that he missed the point of the story completely. When Mark Whalberg’s character crashes on the planet, it takes about five minutes for him to be completely acclimated to his alien surroundings. The humans seemed to see him as an expected savior, as if they did nothing more than wait for him to show up so the action could begin.
In one scene where the pilot is brought to a simian senator’s house as a servant, the other humans tell him about the customs he needs to follow, without ever even wondering where he came from, again as if this man from the sky were no big deal. He speaks of his ship and taking off again, and the other humans accept this strange development without explanation.
The social commentary of the original film is lost on this one. As opposed the lessons of man’s mistreatment of the planet and his fellow species abundant in the 1968 version, we are treated to a two hour PETA commercial. One moment the movie’s main lesson is the mistreatment of lesser species and the next it shifts to politics. Very confusing.
The character played by Estella Warren didn’t even qualify as eye-candy. She is almost TOO gorgeous with her perfect hair and painted lips, and her entire role seems to be running ten feet behind our hero wherever he goes. There is no interplay between these two as you would expect. In fact, the only nice romantic possibility was between the pilot and Ari, the female “animal-rights” activist played quite well by Helena Bonham Carter. The suggestion of an inter-species relationship was touching at some points, disturbing at others. Again, no consistency.
By my reckoning, the main focus of the movie was stolen from Mark Whalberg by Tim Roth as Thade, the simian Army General. Roth plays the character with zeal, his disdain for the human species apparent in every move he makes. His movements and actions are made with a visible pent-up rage. If there were shining moments of great acting in this movie, they belonged to Tim Roth.
The most unwatchable scene was between Thade and his dying father, played by Charleton Heston. Heston is on the other side of the genetic fence in this version, and he was out of place from the moment this scene started. It was almost painful watching the old ape give his son a lecture (poorly written) on the gun he found. The diatribe about the dangers of man’s technology were not only out of place (how would he know what man is capable of based on an ancient artifact found 50 years ago?), but utterly ludicrous coming from a man who is well known for wanting to put guns in the hands of anybody who wants one. His militia-like fascination with being armed cannot be overlooked during this sappy scene, which is another disjointed 10 minutes, as if Heston lobbied Hollywood to put this scene in. It simply reeks of behind-the-scenes politics, taking the viewer out of the film and into an NRA meeting.
In this version, our hero does not find himself back on Earth, but the origins of the ape’s dominance is explained in the final battle scene. Poorly. It is ludicrous to think that a single chimp (albeit genetically enhanced) could create a species capable of gaining the upper-hand over the humans that controlled them in only 20 or so generations of evolution. The explanation itself is given in a centuries-old video recording that is so choppy that if you blink, you’ll never get it.
It is the very last scene that was supposed to be Tim Burton’s take on the “twist ending.” This scene made NO sense and is never explained. I’m pretty good at picking up on a director’s vision and the subtle lessons of film…but I’m totally lost on this one. Not to put to fine a point on it, the end sucked.
There were some highlights that were good. The orangutan slave-trader was played to the hilt, providing some very amusing and comical moments. (“Be sure to get rid of it before it gets too old. The last thing you want running around your house is a human teen-ager.”) I think Burton may have been trying to provide some moments similar to Roddy McDowell’s in the original. It falls a little short, but it’s still entertaining. The scenes between Ari’s gorilla bodyguard (the only actor besides Roth in this who acted with his eyes as well as his voice) and an ape that was apparently his old friend (another part of the plot left frustratingly unexplained) were touching at times, bringing about a feeling of apes on two sides of the human-rights argument.
Overall, this film would have made a better hour-long cartoon. If you haven’t seen the original, you might find something to like about the new Planet of the Apes. If you are fan of the original films, you are going to be wishing that the humans couldn’t speak in about ten minutes. The fact that they couldn’t in the 1968 version made the hero’s job even harder and really separated him from the rest of the pack. That was believable, as a species that can’t speak is sure to be considered inferior. When one shows up that can, it opens a whole Pandora’s box of moral questions. In this version, it simply seems that the humans accepted their fate, which is ludicrous given that Thade spends so much time convincing Ari’s father, a senator, that the humans outnumber them. After Heston’s rant about their technology, it simply doesn’t make sense that the humans waited for a hero to show up to make a stand. Without the ability to speak, you could understand that. But not here.
So, save yourself the cost of a DVD and use the same money to purchase the original series. Even the sequels were better than this version of the “original”.
When the remake of “Planet of the Apes” was announced, I spent long months in anticipation. Coming from the generation that spawned the original film (and the unnecessary sequels), I was looking forward to seeing what modern technology could do with such a concept. I missed the chance to see it in it’s limited theatrical run, so I had to further wait for the DVD release.
Now I’ll wait another 30 years for a GOOD remake.
The problem with this movie is not the filmmaking itself, so let’s start with the good points. This film is visually stunning. Tim Burton made it in his usual dark image, the scenery and sets having both a familiar and alien feel about them at the same time. The make-up was wonderful, and the mannerisms of the Apes were more “ape-like” than in the original, where the actors moved about as if they actually WERE men in monkey-suits. They climb across their ceilings, sniff each other in greeting and have all the traits of apes that have evolved into a sentient species. A very cool scene with a fat old aristocrat and his young trophy wife preparing for bed showed the beast still at the surface of these creatures, a veiled jab at man’s sometimes animalistic relationship with sex.
The problem with this film is the pace and the believability itself. Tim Burton spent so much energy on creating the aforementioned atmosphere (and no doubt putting his own indelible stamp on it) that he missed the point of the story completely. When Mark Whalberg’s character crashes on the planet, it takes about five minutes for him to be completely acclimated to his alien surroundings. The humans seemed to see him as an expected savior, as if they did nothing more than wait for him to show up so the action could begin.
In one scene where the pilot is brought to a simian senator’s house as a servant, the other humans tell him about the customs he needs to follow, without ever even wondering where he came from, again as if this man from the sky were no big deal. He speaks of his ship and taking off again, and the other humans accept this strange development without explanation.
The social commentary of the original film is lost on this one. As opposed the lessons of man’s mistreatment of the planet and his fellow species abundant in the 1968 version, we are treated to a two hour PETA commercial. One moment the movie’s main lesson is the mistreatment of lesser species and the next it shifts to politics. Very confusing.
The character played by Estella Warren didn’t even qualify as eye-candy. She is almost TOO gorgeous with her perfect hair and painted lips, and her entire role seems to be running ten feet behind our hero wherever he goes. There is no interplay between these two as you would expect. In fact, the only nice romantic possibility was between the pilot and Ari, the female “animal-rights” activist played quite well by Helena Bonham Carter. The suggestion of an inter-species relationship was touching at some points, disturbing at others. Again, no consistency.
By my reckoning, the main focus of the movie was stolen from Mark Whalberg by Tim Roth as Thade, the simian Army General. Roth plays the character with zeal, his disdain for the human species apparent in every move he makes. His movements and actions are made with a visible pent-up rage. If there were shining moments of great acting in this movie, they belonged to Tim Roth.
The most unwatchable scene was between Thade and his dying father, played by Charleton Heston. Heston is on the other side of the genetic fence in this version, and he was out of place from the moment this scene started. It was almost painful watching the old ape give his son a lecture (poorly written) on the gun he found. The diatribe about the dangers of man’s technology were not only out of place (how would he know what man is capable of based on an ancient artifact found 50 years ago?), but utterly ludicrous coming from a man who is well known for wanting to put guns in the hands of anybody who wants one. His militia-like fascination with being armed cannot be overlooked during this sappy scene, which is another disjointed 10 minutes, as if Heston lobbied Hollywood to put this scene in. It simply reeks of behind-the-scenes politics, taking the viewer out of the film and into an NRA meeting.
In this version, our hero does not find himself back on Earth, but the origins of the ape’s dominance is explained in the final battle scene. Poorly. It is ludicrous to think that a single chimp (albeit genetically enhanced) could create a species capable of gaining the upper-hand over the humans that controlled them in only 20 or so generations of evolution. The explanation itself is given in a centuries-old video recording that is so choppy that if you blink, you’ll never get it.
It is the very last scene that was supposed to be Tim Burton’s take on the “twist ending.” This scene made NO sense and is never explained. I’m pretty good at picking up on a director’s vision and the subtle lessons of film…but I’m totally lost on this one. Not to put to fine a point on it, the end sucked.
There were some highlights that were good. The orangutan slave-trader was played to the hilt, providing some very amusing and comical moments. (“Be sure to get rid of it before it gets too old. The last thing you want running around your house is a human teen-ager.”) I think Burton may have been trying to provide some moments similar to Roddy McDowell’s in the original. It falls a little short, but it’s still entertaining. The scenes between Ari’s gorilla bodyguard (the only actor besides Roth in this who acted with his eyes as well as his voice) and an ape that was apparently his old friend (another part of the plot left frustratingly unexplained) were touching at times, bringing about a feeling of apes on two sides of the human-rights argument.
Overall, this film would have made a better hour-long cartoon. If you haven’t seen the original, you might find something to like about the new Planet of the Apes. If you are fan of the original films, you are going to be wishing that the humans couldn’t speak in about ten minutes. The fact that they couldn’t in the 1968 version made the hero’s job even harder and really separated him from the rest of the pack. That was believable, as a species that can’t speak is sure to be considered inferior. When one shows up that can, it opens a whole Pandora’s box of moral questions. In this version, it simply seems that the humans accepted their fate, which is ludicrous given that Thade spends so much time convincing Ari’s father, a senator, that the humans outnumber them. After Heston’s rant about their technology, it simply doesn’t make sense that the humans waited for a hero to show up to make a stand. Without the ability to speak, you could understand that. But not here.
So, save yourself the cost of a DVD and use the same money to purchase the original series. Even the sequels were better than this version of the “original”.
