Great Make-Up, But It Isn’t Enough To Cover Up A Soft Script For ‘Apes’

There has been very little to be excited about this summer at the cinema. All that would change, I hoped, with the release of Planet of the Apes, Tim Burton’s take on the seminal 1968 sci-fi original. But alas, I only set myself up for more disappointment.

This version, dubbed a “revisiting” of the original film (“not a remake”), is set in 2029 and stars Mark Wahlberg as Leo Davidson, a space station astronaut who trains genetically-enhanced monkeys to pilot space pods on dangerous missions. When his favorite chimp, Pericles, disappears after trying to navigate a mysterious electromagnetic field, Leo flies after him and himself gets lost in space and crash lands on an unknown planet. Once there, the young pilot finds a world run by intelligent apes that rule over the human population as either pets or slave labor. Leo, as you might imagine, doesn’t take too well to captivity, or to being called a “d*mn, dirty human,” so he plans on busting out of ape city with the help of Daena (Estella Warren), a fellow human, and sympathizer Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), a chimp who opposes society’s cruel treatment of humans.

Visionary director Burton, the man behind the two Michael Keaton-led Batman flicks, Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, and most recently, Sleepy Hollow, is a talent upon whom one can almost always count to have an interesting take on the protagonist: whether it’s the duality of the vigilante-crusader Batman, Pinocchio-like outsider Edward Scissorhands, loopily eccentric director Ed Wood, or fraidy-cat Inspector Ichabod Crane, Burton has a knack for bringing our heroes down to earth by endowing them with unique foibles and frailties. In the case of Planet of the Apes, Burton certainly lavishes such attention to detail upon the ape characters, giving them unique looks, attire, animal behavior, beliefs, modes of aggressiveness, and more. Aided greatly by the sterling work of Oscar-winning makeup designer Rick Baker, Burton creates a vibrant, boisterous simian society that teems with convincing life. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the human characters that inhabit this movie.

As opposed to the original film, this movie presents a homo sapien society that thinks and talks and thus, instead of being inferior to the apes, is rather being dominated by them. But this creates a problem: whereas it might be understood why the human characters would flock to Leo if he were notably superior to them in intelligence (as Heston’s Taylor was to the human brutes of the ’68 version), but here, aside from some flashy technology, he is no better than they. Plus, he lacks the raw charisma Heston exuded with such gusto. Though Wahlberg is a more than capable actor (i.e., Boogie Nights and Three Kings), he comes across almost deathly boring here. Why would the natives be so willing to follow him, and indeed, die for him, when he seems to care little for their cause or plight and all he really wants to do is get home?

But where Burton’s film may surprisingly give us cardboard characters, it almost makes up for it with some strong performances from the simian characters. Tim Roth, as the sneering General Thade, is all motion and menace as the dark chimpanzee warrior who would much rather eradicate the human species than simply subjugate them. Michael Clarke Duncan uses his hulking frame and basso profundo voice to good measure as Thade’s right-hand ape, the gorilla Attar, and Bonham Carter, far from her usual corsets-and-gowns period parts, throws herself wonderfully into her role as a sensitive (and sensual?) chimpanzee. It’s just too bad the script fails them in almost every way. Where the original film, most surely a product of its times, had a definitive voice and tone (how could it not, seeing as it came from the pen of Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling), Burton’s is disappointingly soulless. Where the ’68 film gave us a twist ending that also deftly commented on all that came before (and all that was going on in the world at the time), this one… well, I won’t ruin it.

Planet of the Apes, rated PG-13 for intense action sequences, ups the ante with its superior make-up and character designs… but then, it’s been over 30 years and audiences should expect no less. Unfortunately, we get very little more.