Planet of the Apes (2001)

Genre

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

Director

Tim Burton

Country

USA

Cast

Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Clarke Duncan, Paul Giamatti, Estella Warren, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Kris Kristofferson

Storyline

Air Force astronaut Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) crash lands on a mysterious planet where evolved, talking apes dominate a race of primitive humans.

Opinion

Thirty-three year after Pierre Boulle's masterpiece, "Planet of the Apes", they thought it made sense to remake a film that absolutely needed no remake. But how do you even attempt to remake a classic? Idea, you hire a great director, Tim Burton, he's definitely going to make a great film. Well, I hate to say this, but it doesn't work like that, and this new "Planet of the Apes" is the very proof of that.

Obviously not even close to the original, this film is also pretty much atrocious from start to finish, and the main reason is the dreadful script.

The writer decided to abandon the original story - which is okay so they won't ruin it - for a lame, simple story that has more holes than a strainer, made of cliché after cliché, only to end in the worst possible ways, with a silly finale that makes no sense whatsoever. And it can be summarized in three words: running, hiding, battling. That's all that happens after all.

But what kind of awful story would it be without awful characters? Don't worry, that's another feature of this film. Character development is completely lacking - okay, maybe Ari, the ape played by Helena Bonham Carter, is slightly developed, but that' all - and there are plenty of useless human characters. The astronaut would have been enough, even though he's quite a character. One minute he says to apes that on his planet apes are kept in zoos, and regarded with nuts; a moment after that, he says that on his planet humans and apes live in peace. That's a weird conception of peace.

However, that's not what annoyed me the most, that place belongs to Tim Burton. He is completely missing. There's nothing in this film that would make you think he made it. Nothing at all. Somehow he also failed to make any kind of social commentary, and he handled the theme of being different in a very childish way.

Even the action sequences, special effects and score are awful. And the cast, of course. Estella Warren deserves a special mention because she is the worst of them all. She is basically a very good looking piece of wood. I wonder how she even gets acting jobs. Please, don't answer that.