THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Making a film franchise out of Pierre Boulle’s Planet of the Apes was a gamble in the late 60s and early 70s, yet it paid off at the time with consistent storytelling and groundbreaking makeup effects. With the original saga’s finale Battle for the Planet of the Apes leaving behind a dissatisfying conclusion, audiences were open minded to see a do over. Director Tim Burton stepped up to the plate in 2001 and in the worst way possible, it wasn’t what people expected.
PLOT
The titular remake takes place in a fictional 2029 and follows the US Air Force space station Oberon that trains apes for space missions. When one chimpanzee named Pericles disappears after entering an electromagnetic storm, human astronaut chooses to follow and bring him back safely. Upon entering the storm, he crashlands on the planet Ashlar. There, he encounters a city of apes that are extremely intelligent, capable to be fluent in English and have enslaved humans. When being transferred to Ape City, he and a female named Daena (Estella Warren) get purchased by Ari, a chimpanzee that protests against humans’ mistreatment which puts her at odds against not only her father Senator Sandar (David Warner), but also the merciless chimp General Thade and the gorilla Colonel Attar. Overnight, Leo and Daena escape imprisonment alongside other human slaves that includes: Dawna’s father Karubi (Kris Kristofferson), a house human named Tival (Erick Avari), a teenager named Tival (Erick Avari) and Gunner (Evan Parke). Those that escaped with Leo are joined by Ari and the gorilla servant Krull (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) who also has a recurring dislike with Thade & Attar. On the way out of the city, Karubi would get himself killed when confronting Attar, acting as a sacrifice to buy the others more time to escape. Leo takes the group to his crash site to trace a signal that’ll take him another ship that’ll get him back home. The orangutan slave trader Limbo tries to take them in for himself, but fails and joins the journey as prisoner to prevent Thade from finding them. When the said general visits his dying father Zaius, the latter shares in his dying breath that apes were slaves to humans before it became the other way around. Leo’s signal has him follow the path of the forbidden temple of Calima, once belonged to the ape god Semos. After passing through a military camp overnight, Leo and his group reach the temple by morning and discover Calima originates from a sign that says when undusted ‘Caution Live Animals’. The sign comes from what is revealed to be the remains of Oberon. Leo would read the computer logs to uncover that Oberon crash landed thousands of years prior, whereas he landed in the future after he entered the vortex. The log would also reveal that one of the apes onboard named Semos organized a mutiny and took over the vessel after it crashed. Both sides have escaped since and their descendants have been all Leo’s encountered. After hearing this discovery, thousands of other humans join him in Calima and look up to him for defying the apes, wanting to aid the fight against Thade’s forces. By next sunrise, the fight ensues and Leo has a temporarily has an advantage when using Oberon’s remaining as a shockwave towards the first wave. After that, Thade sends the rest all at once which raises high casualties on the protagonists’ side that include Tival, Gunner & Krull. The conflict gets halted when another ship lands that reveals to be Pericles in which the apes mistake to be Semos. Despite the confusion, Thade tries to kill Leo until the human traps him in the pilot’s deck and convinces Attar Semos the rivalry between both species. The colonel chooses to leave his superior to rot and vow a new era of peace. Leo gives his goodbye to everyone and allows Pericles to stay before departing. It appears as if he returned to Earth after escaping the storm and crash landing on Washington DC. But the film ends in a shocking cliffhanger where the planet is now ape dominated and Thade was shown to be a past leader where the Lincoln Memorial is memorialized after him.
THOUGHTS
Due to watching and enjoying the 1968 classic very much, I was of course curious on how different this was gonna be and sadly, too different was what set us up for failure. It was honestly heartbreaking to not see Burton completely deliver since he was consistent with quality at this point in his career. There are things I can admit were positively effective however. The production design of the ape planet was viscerally great and the combo of makeup & costumes to bring the apes to life are fucking magnificent due to making each one distinguishable and interesting from one another. Those are the only strengths I can say because due to a poor script by Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal & William Broyles Junior, I don’t gain an interest with the human characters which is bad because we’re supposed to root for. All the human slaves are so one dimensional it’s hard for me to care for them apart from being victims of the situation. I normally enjoy Mark Wahlberg as a leading man but when it comes to blockbusters like this and Transformers, he feels so bland. Leo Davidson is indeed a protagonist that has his own compassion for all living things the way Ari does, but he has such a chip on the shoulder to the point I’m waiting for this story to wrap up. I don’t even see the point of him kissing Daena goodbye at the end because he showed zero interest in her and only related to being free from apes. All of this feels so distasteful than the cameos of Charlton Heston as Zaius and Linda Harrison as another human slave. The story feels one sided where the main interest is on the apes which is a problem because that’s the side written to go against. Nevertheless, each character has their elements to maintain my interest thanks to the rest of the cast owning the roles. The only ape character that didn’t feel fleshed out to me was Krull. Apparently he was a military general until speaking up to Thade led him to intentionally sabotaging his career that led to him being a servant for Sandar and Attar supported Thade out of loyalty. I mean this exposition does backup the animosity they had before the second act, but it should’ve been more fluent of a conversation that would make me care before he dies in battle. I don’t think enough people are gonna say it, but Paul Giamatti was fantastically hilarious as Limbo. It’s impossible to keep a straight face on him being onscreen due to being a cowardly shrewd of a character. I’m trying to keep it together when he bows out on the fight and claims to make a move just when it’s over, but the real kicker is when he’s trying to offer human kids aspirin. The laughter feels endless for me at that point because his delivery was that funny to me. What I enjoyed about Helena Bonham Carter as Ari however was how she was this story’s version to Zira from the original film, due to how she acts idealistically compared to everyone else around her. She’s in awe with how smart humans can be and is the first to consider peace before Leo gets there. She even proves her compassion furthermore when she gets the human branding mark which gets the respect of Daena. Now that it comes down to it, the one character that defines the movie in all the right ways is Thade. This franchise has a great track record in making compelling villains and thanks to a transcending performance by Tim Roth, he’s not an exception compared to Aldo from Battle. He is someone who grew up believing superiority was the only way to live and was willing to do whatever it took to stay at the top where he felt he belonged. With such a motive, it’s hard to not be frightened of him especially when he tries pursuing Ari and somehow has restraint after each failure. Then when you add Attar, Michael Clarke Duncan presents him as one born to fight and believed Thade’s methods were the only way to live. Thanks to quick convincing, the latter accepts he was misguided and cuts an overdue tie. Despite finding enough things to defend, they don’t outweigh all the stuff in the story that don’t make any damn sense to me. To get it out of the way, I can’t stand the twist at all. Like we don’t get an explanation how did Thade change the trajectory of Earth before Leo got there? The fact they don’t give any appropriate details because they expect a sequel to give expected answers, when it ended up never happening is all the more irritating. Going back to the top, how come the Oberon is able to pick up frequency patterns yet they couldn’t detect Leo using a pod until separated from the station? Like it’s a crazy ass design flaw for them to only detect pods after launching because that’s asking for bad things to happen. I hate continuity errors and it was annoying how much I saw thanks to what I would identify as damp editing. The takes done for the apes leaping towards their enemies or punching them are so weird because they make it too obvious wires/harnesses are involved. They don’t even give appropriate details to the action like putting bruise makeup on Leo when he gets his ass whooped by the apes. And wasn’t it pointless to separate the males and females when they ended up getting put in the same cage? Leo even shoots his flare at eye level on one take when the next one shows the flare in the sky. That’s dumber than going exactly through the middle of the camp rather than try to go around it. I get they were using horses to cross the river, but they still could’ve gone around afterwards. Daena was literally in the same cage as Leo before Ari buys them so that’s pointless tension if you ask me. What pulls me out of Zaius’ scene is how he knows about different life was for apes and the secret has been kept for centuries. I mean if that’s part of the reason how the roles were reversed, I feel like the current generation should’ve already known this to backup their prejudice. And how the hell is story spreading or Leo’s escape within two days? I know there’s gotta be an excuse for him to have an army to fight off Thade’s forces, but it’s so easily handed to him because we don’t even know how the word got out and know where to go find him. Having said all that pisses me off, it’s hard to ignore it all and try being appreciative on what this movie’s going for. If you can, good luck to you. To get this over with, 2001’s Planet of the Apes is one of the worst movies ever made for misusing its potential in more ways than one. If you were disappointed with this like I was, save yourself the trouble with watch the rebooted saga that gave way more passion in comparison.
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