Planet of the Apes 2001

• Directed by Tim Burton
• July 27, 2001
• Based on the 1963 book Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle

An astronaut crash-lands on a planet inhabited by intelligent apes where the apes treat humans as slaves. Sounds kinda like the original but it is not.

I went into Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes when it first came out with high hopes. Burton gives a unique flavor to his films. His style is the main reason that his Batman is quite possibly one of the best superhero/comic book films of all time. Yet that same unique style makes this film more goofy than anything else. He brings too much of it here and did not know how to hold back.

With the effects and technical capabilities of the time it certainly had the potential be something very good, but it fumbles very often in the basics of the story. Like why does the USAF test genetically enhanced apes on a far-off space station? I do not think we ever get an explanation for that one element dropped in that explains the super apes. The narrative just moves so quickly and drops things in with little to no discussion.

This is also hampered largely by the casting of the actors portraying the humans. Mark Wahlberg, Kris Kristofferson, and Estella Warren feel just, well, wrong in their casting. Wahlberg her just did nothing special with his part. He was the same character he usually plays. No different than what he in any number of movies. Warren is a pretty face but not much else and Kristofferson just screams ‘country’ and not ‘primitive.’

Which brings me to something else. The primitive humans-the ones outside ape control-are unusually clean. They are supposed to be dirty and filthy but look well groomed with hints of access to makeup and haircare products. In the original the humans looked kinda dirty with Nova (played by Linda Harrison who makes a cameo here in a non-speaking part) being the relatively cleanest. Heston (who also cameos) could not lust for a woman that looked like she had lice after all.

This version of the story has some plotholes. I’m left struggling to figure out how Mark Wahlberg’s character of Leo Davidson inspired all of the followers we see gather together during the finale. It’s a really nice idea but one that makes absolutely zero sense when minimal thought is applied. There’s no demonstration of mass communication in this entire film to spread word to hundreds of people because the apes clearly have a pre industrial society. And it’s unlikely that the apes would be spreading the information concerning a revolutionary to their slaves and the general human population.

Then there is that twist ending that made the whole exercise completely pointless. The film’s main villain is General Thade (Tim Roth) and at the end he is locked in a room with every human and ape against him. Yet Leo crashes in Washington in front of an altered Lincoln Memorial honoring Thade.

Roth was absolutely fantastic in the part. Completely unhinged and very threatening in the role though his character’s motivations were just blind bigotry. Maybe it was the use of prosthetics but the ape actors such as Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Paul Giamatti did well with their material even if it was not the best material.

The prosthetics are actually quite impressive. In comparison to the original what was done here by the legendary Rick Baker is much more realistic. They look so very real in a way that the CGI of the newest films cannot quite replicate. Most of the actors are to the point of being virtually unrecognizable until they speak. The only drawback are the actresses as their look borders on generic fantasy creature in comparison to their male counterparts.

I do like how the answer to the truth about the fabled ape city of Calima was presented so very casually. I’m not talking about when they finally get there, but rather through what the ape symbol used as a brand and generally revered by them was. Burton in a few instances gives us a full on shot of the station that we also get in a very similar manner to how the brand is presented to the camera.

There was the possibility for good if not great but this enterprise all feels just half done. Like the idea was there but they made a movie before they thought it all through. They assembled a great cast (at least among the apes) helmed by a director that had the story waffle between serious and silly. There is an ape sex scene in this! Foreplay anyway. But why?

Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes was not quite what it could’ve been. I didn’t completely hate it, but I think I like it more for what it could’ve been and not for what it actually was.