Monkey Wrench

By Frank Gabrenya

From The Columbus Dispatch, 07.27.2001

Fans frustrated by the middling quality of mainstream movies this summer have been pinning their hopes on Tim Burton's new version of Planet of the Apes -- and I keep wondering why.

The anticipation seems based on glowing memories of the 1968 adventure in which astronaut Charlton Heston crash-landed into a society in which the apes were stern rulers and humans were mute animals used for scientific experiments.

Spicing the prospects is Burton, a visionary whose films usually take a provocative approach.

One could argue -- and I will -- that the first Apes is less a sci-fi classic than an intriguing novelty smoothly executed, with a melancholy tone and about three punch-in-the-stomach moments, surrounded by slow stretches of plodding exposition and forced humor.

Burton has imagination to burn -- especially in his visual design -- but he often reverts to conventional storytelling midway or loses interest in his plot entirely.

True to form, Burton's Planet of the Apes is a visually striking concept, filled with weighty darkness and the severe trappings of a militaristic society.

Just as typically, his plot runs along predictable lines, with a glut of scenes made up of sadly ordinary movie moments.

Burton has stressed that his Planet isn't a remake; he prefers the synthetic term re-imagining. Sure enough, the script presents a new way to drop a contemporary human spaceman into a world of reverse evolution.

Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) is an astronaut working on an orbiting space station where chimps are trained for hazardous duty. When one of his favorites is lost in an electromagnetic field, Davidson chases it in a space pod, zaps through a cosmic light show and comes out on Ape World.

Familiar developments follow: He joins a herd of humans being rounded up by ape soldiers; he rallies his timid allies and befriends a sympathetic chimp ( Helena Bonham Carter) with progressive notions; he riles a fierce ape leader (Tim Roth); and he and the others dodge groaning non sequiturs ("Extremism in the defense of apes is no vice!").

Burton's apes speak and ride horses, but they also screech when excited and leap as if their boots were fitted with springs. Whether at work or play, they occasionally dangle upside down from overhead rafters or tree limbs.

The humans can speak, but none has anything interesting to say. The simians have all the choice lines and business, with Paul Giamatti providing comic relief in the unoriginal role of a greedy slave dealer and Roth throwing monumental tantrums -- going ape -- when he doesn't get his way.

(Heston makes an unbilled appearance as an aged ape who shares the fears about humans that motivated old Dr. Zaius in the original.)

The "re-imagining" differs strongly from the original's fatalistic tone, set by its hero's opening monologue and capped by the famous final shot that indicted man for his self-destruction.

In line with today's mainstream movies, in which the hero always has a chance, Davidson seeks a way to return to his own time and space.

The new movie only flirts with the social satire that sparked the middle of the first film; Burton's Planet is about action and movement. In that vein, it brings on its apes in half the time the 1968 film took.

The movie's triumph is Rick Baker's ape makeup. The masks in the first film and its sequels were little more than plastic snouts; Baker's ape faces include an array of shapes, colors and textures, with the actors' eyes piercing through. In one remarkable shot, Bonham Carter's chimp actually smiles.

The unrecognizable actors fare better than Wahlberg, who mumbles virtually every line he speaks.

All the adornments are downgraded by Burton's weakness for tired movie moments: As hero and villain struggle, the gun flies across the floor and both leap for it; a boy is told to stay behind the lines in the big battle but rides right into danger and has to be rescued by the hero; characters are flung 10 feet into the air, land with thuds, wince and jump back into the fight.

I flirted with the idea that Burton consciously made a comedy, a winking satire of the original Apes series and a parody of action movies, much in the way he twisted the superhero genre in Batman Returns. But Burton hasn't provided enough evidence to tip the argument, even though the last shot, which produced shudders in 1968, may elicit howls in this version.

Even a "re-imagining" can't recreate the sense of excitement that made the original seem bold. The idea of the apes in charge is too well-established.

Maybe that's why it doesn't try to be more than an old story in new costumes and better masks.

This is one time I'll agree with the line that disgruntled moviegoers always throw at critics: It's only a movie. Too bad.