Film Review: PLANET OF THE APES ** (out of 5)
A research astronaut in the near future enters a space/time warp to retrieve a beloved chimpanzee and crash lands on a planet ruled by…well, who do you think?
If you haven’t realized beforehand, you should know something has gone very wrong in this hubristic refurbishment of the classic science fiction film Planet of the Apes (1968) when the oppressed humans of the title venue start talking. Until that moment, about thirty minutes into this blundering, standardized modern Hollywood promotional machine, Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes is at least a tolerable retelling of a contemporary parable, albeit taking considerable artistic license with the established story. But once the first human in this unweeded garden opens their mouth, blurting substandard modern American English, it’s obvious that no one involved in the production has the slightest idea of what this film is, or could have been, about.
Throughout Tim Burton’s illustrious sixteen years as an important director, he has been well-known as a “dark” moviemaker, without anyone really taking the time to analyze or define their terms. He’s dark, we say, because his films seem to be disruptive to some sort of (equally ill-defined) middle class values, or because they eschew “traditional” hero/protagonists in favor of the grotesque. But darkness implies depth: the basement is dark, caves are dark, the bottom of the freakin’ ocean is dark. Burton’s films are not necessarily “dark” — in the sense of opening onto inexplicable human mysteries — so much as they are underlit extravaganzas of twisted production design. He’s dark all right, but only because it’s hard to see what’s going on in some of his movies.
Burton’s Planet of the Apes is fancifully dark, which is to say it plays at being a disturbing vision without actually committing to the unknown. A concept director who is most at home constructing nice shadowy pictures (and letting great actors like Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton disappear over the top), Burton needs a good writer feeding him decent material or he loses interest and makes whimsical decisions that undercut the drama. With Planet of the Apes, he is at the helm of a huge production, which means he must always have one eye on the PG bottom line, commanding a script written by committee and trying so hard to distance himself from the original film that he drains the fantasy of any interest or meaning, never mind depth. Even more so than the famously awful sequels to the first movie, this Planet of the Apes completely loses touch with the satire that inspired it.
All of which must beg the question, “Why bother?” If a filmmaker has as much contempt for their source material as Burton has for this entire enterprise, why waste everyone’s time, energy and money? Who does he think he is, Jean Luc Godard?
Briefly: Burton’s Apes is a newly invented story, appropriating the idea of a planet where the great apes run things in a nasty manner and then populating the tale with a fresh cast of poorly drawn characters. The pared down, amateurish summer movie plot centers around one particularly crazed chimp general who chases an incompetent human astronaut for two hours, first through a murky forest, then across an unnamed, unimportant desert, toward a lackluster, inconsequential destiny.
What’s gone? Anything like a commentary on the human or simian conditions, a sense of real wit or purpose behind the scenes, and the apparently outdated notion of a narrative arc. The sure-to-be-praised ape makeup is barely more impressive, or expressive, than the makeup effects that started it all thirty-three years ago, and some of it, such as the designs for Helena Bonham Carter’s mask, seems half-assed rather than a product of evolution, either onscreen or off. Perhaps this is to give some juvenile suggestion of cross breeding among species (which was bandied about in pre-release publicity), always a temptation when moviemakers try their hand at science fiction, and probably no more impossible than faster-than-light space travel in Einstein’s universe, but if so it suggests a striking paucity of imagination from a group of people who have the whole digital revolution at their multimillion dollar fingertips.
By far the worst transgression upon common sense, though, is having a human population that has not devolved into mute savagery. No wonder Mark Wahlberg’s astronaut/hero is such a milquetoast zero: the planet of apes on which he crash lands is really a planet of mostly undifferentiated apes and humans, and he faces no mirror images here, either of his own egocentric chauvinism, or his animal nature. He is never forced to examine his own beliefs or actions; he’s just kind of a surfer-type flyboy cypher, incapable of an epiphany even if one was to present itself. He’s, like, totally psychologically capable, man, of dealing with the situation, all right? Except, of course, when it comes to landing his spacecraft.
As if it was an afterthought, this Planet of the Apes actually borrows something close to the surprise climax of Pierre Boulle’s novella, which was different from the great “Statue of Liberty” finale of the original film. But without the overall regression of humanity that Boulle, in his trenchant Frenchness, made the centerpiece of his story, the ending has no bite, never mind a resonance throughout the rest of the script. And that is what good surprise endings accomplish: a rumbling through the fabric of what has gone before, a thunderclap of recognition that changes our perspective on the story’s events. This ending is merely a surprise to have a surprise, because, I guess, it’s expected.
Two good things in this film give a glimpse of what might have been: Tim Roth’s bloodthirsty ape warrior General Thade is an example of performance pyrotechnics at their best, his conception and execution of character both astonishing and beautiful at once, so much so he blows every other actor off the screen whenever he’s around (which makes one wonder if Burton even noticed he had actors on his lavish sets, people who could be directed with some consistency of purpose, if he so chose); and the music score by regular Burton collaborator Danny Elfman is a brilliant update of Jerry Goldsmith’s trend-setting score for the original film, masterfully drawing in hints of primitive violence and a warrior culture, thoroughly outclassing the meager action-drama it serves.
Planet of Apes
directed by Tim Burton; screenplay by William Broyles Jr. and Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal; director of photography, Philippe Rousselot; edited by Chris Lebenzon, Joel Negron; music by Danny Elfman
with: Mark Wahlberg (Capt. Leo Davidson), Tim Roth (Thade), Helena Bonham Carter (Ari)
1 hr., 59m.; 20th Century Fox, rated PG-13
release date: July 27
NOTES:
THE MAGICIAN: Rick Baker (b. 1950) has transformed the art of movie makeup since his early seventies days as an assistant to makeup pioneer Dick Smith. Increasing the use of realistic prosthetics and giving great attention to subliminal details, his finest work is nearly invisible as an illusion, particularly when recreating the behavior of the great apes; see also Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) and Gorillas in the Mist (1988). His first of six Oscars was for the startling metamorphoses in An American Werewolf in London (1981).
IRONY, ANYONE?: in Boulle’s novel, the cause of human devolution was a rampant, uncontrolled intellectual apathy in the species.
Eric Barker is a writer and independent filmmaker living in Denver.
