Monkey Business

By Michael H. Kleinschrodt

From The Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 07.27.2001

Forget everything you know about "Planet of the Apes."

For once, the Hollywood hype machine is right to describe a movie as something more than a remake. Credit goes to director Tim Burton ("Sleepy Hollow"), who has jettisoned all of the characters familiar from the five "Apes" movies of the '60s and '70s as well as the highly structured social order that placed theocratic orangutans in charge of the scientific chimpanzees and militaristic gorillas. Gone, too, is the surprise ending of the 1968 original, which had Charlton Heston collapsing in despair near a half-buried Statue of Liberty.

Instead, Burton (and his three screenwriters) deliver a planet populated by apes who act more apelike and whose professions aren't dictated by their species. And as good as John Chambers' Oscar-winning makeup was for its day, Rick Baker has managed to improve upon it. It's impossible to recognize the actors playing the apes except, in some instances, by voice.

This time out, Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) is a pilot aboard a space station that encounters a strange electromagnetic storm. When a probe flown by a trained chimpanzee disappears into the storm, Leo impetuously launches a one-man rescue mission. The storm disables Leo's pod and hurtles him hundreds of years into the future before Leo crashes onto a seemingly hospitable planet with water, trees and breathable air.

Leo quickly encounters a group of terrified people running through the jungle and is shocked to discover their enemy: an army of talking apes led by the terrifyingly volatile Thade (Tim Roth). Were it not for the intervention of Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), a chimpanzee in favor of human rights, Leo would be sold into slavery along with the rest of the captured humans. These include the defiant Daena (Estella Warren) and her father, Karubi (Kris Kristofferson).

Once Leo figures out the lay of the land, he persuades Ari to help him escape from Ape City and search for a way home.

The movie's first hour, set in Ape City, is a campy delight with witty dialogue that includes a couple of classic lines from the original film turned upside down to suit the new context. There's even an appearance by Heston as Thade's dying father. (Linda Harrison, who played Nova in the first film, also is briefly glimpsed.)

These scenes also feature the movie's best art direction. Ape City is a compact warren of interconnected dwellings and shops reminiscent of the Ewok village from "Return of the Jedi." The entire set is like a giant jungle gym, which befits the city's inhabitants.

The movie grows more tedious as separate bands of humans and apes make their way across the desert for a showdown at Calima, the apes' holiest site. This eventually leads to an interesting new twist, one truer to the spirit of Pierre Boulle's novel than that of the '68 film and one that neatly suggests a sequel.

Still, the original film's warning about the dangers of the nuclear arms race gave the film its cultural resonance. Stripped of its political agenda, the original film would be almost unwatchable.

Burton's version throws politics aside and sets out to deliver a sci-fi action flick for the popcorn-munching masses. On that level, it succeeds.

Especially thrilling are hunt sequences featuring chimpanzees swinging through the trees, baring their teeth and racing into battle on all fours. (In a nicely Burtonesque touch, soldier chimps wear pointed little helmets much like the Winged Monkeys wore in "The Wizard of Oz.")

In addition to Roth's bravura performance as the villain, Paul Giamatti provides comic relief as a slave-trading orangutan while Michael Clarke Duncan creates an unusually principled gorilla.

Wahlberg, Bonham Carter and Warren are fine in their roles, but the script doesn't require much of them.

No matter how much I enjoyed Burton's "Planet of the Apes," however, I couldn't help missing Zira, Cornelius and Dr. Zaius (the characters played originally by Kim Hunter, Roddy McDowall and Maurice Evans).

At least composer Danny Elfman does a nicely subtle job of evoking the percussive score Jerry Goldsmith wrote for the original film.

While Burton's film is more entertaining than Franklin J. Schaffner's version, it simply doesn't pack the iconic punch of that famous Statue of Liberty shot and is unlikely to be as well-remembered as its predecessors.

**1/2

Plot: An astronaut crashes onto a planet ruled by apes, where humans toil as slaves and pets.

What works: The actors truly disappear into their characters thanks to Rick Baker's impressive makeup and their own careful studies of ape movement.

What doesn't: The movie lacks the sociopolitical commentary that gave Franklin J. Schaffner's 1968 version its cultural resonance.