Tim Burton’s 2001 remake of Franklin Schaffner’s Planet of the Apes, the groundbreaking, socially disconcerting adaptation of Pierre Boulle’s 1963 novel, La Planète des singes, pales in comparison to its predecessor in every respect with the exception of the production’s make-up as the consummate artistry of Rick Baker miraculously supercedes the Academy Award-winning effects of the original cinematic rendition of a world gone mad.
2029: After losing Pericles, a chimpanzee trained as a scout for space missions, Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) departs from Space Station Oberon in hopes of retrieving his mammalian friend. A nearby planet’s magnetic field pulls Davidson into its atmosphere where he subsequently crash-lands. It is here that the astronaut finds himself in a mirror world where humans are treated as animals and primates reign supreme. After being taken prisoner, Davidson is liberated by a human rights activist, Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), as the duo lead a human rebellion against General Thade (Tim Roth) and his gorilla army.
During a time when remakes were premiering in droves, Fox coined the now-popular term “reimaging” in order to describe what Burton did in respect to Schaffner’s Planet of the Apes. Indeed, the twenty-first century rendition of the tale deviates considerably from its forerunner, thus demanding and deserving a new moniker in which to refer to what we have before us. For example, unlike the indigenous human populace found in the 1968 version, Burton’s Homo sapiens can orally communicate. However, and quite unfortunately, unlike most charter ideas, Burton’s effort is not awe-inspiring nor does it improve upon its predecessor as a consequence of its iconoclasm. In contrast to Stanley Kubrick recognition, as would later be evidenced in a television miniseries, that to literally transcribe Stephen King’s The Shining to the big screen would be a fiasco, part of Burton’s rebellion was the director’s adhering more readily to the original source material than did Schaffner. Burton proceeds without questioning if–by so doing–such is in the best interest of the narrative’s cinematic telling. We quickly discover it is not.
Granted, Burton acts as if he is going to trump Schaffner in his presentation of the already socially volatile tale as he places more emphasis upon race and animal rights (the latter becoming paradoxical when the fact is mentioned that yaks provided the hair for the 500 primate costumes) than did his forbearer. As Ari reprimands a simian child for throwing rocks at captive humans, the youngster retorts, “Human lover.” We watch as consternation arises between human field hands and the jealousy they have for what they refer to as “house humans”–humans who wait on their primate masters. We also witness an inversion of perspectives as apes brand their human property while the consequences of the human slave trade result, much like the selling of livestock, in the division of families (made all the more condemnable in the particular instance witnessed onscreen because familial separation occurs as a result of simian girl merely wanting a human pet).
However, in lieu of the satire listed above and the fact that Burton offers an explanation for the convenience of a human explorer landing upon a planet whose inhabitants just happen to speak the foreigner’s tongue (something which the original cinematic version simply overlooks), after the promising open act, the film digresses into arbitrary action sequences which fail to develop the production’s established themes while proceeding to deplete what came before. Sure, Burton undoubtedly raises a wry eyebrow as we hypocritically cheer for a simian defector as he battles his kin yet, though Franklin J. Schaffner’s themes of human aggression, political/religious bedfellows, class struggle, and animal/human relations are all present, they are never effectively presented but rather merely cursorily addressed only to be quickly forgotten.
Furthermore, and perhaps the biggest flaw of the work, is that–not only is there no meaningful suspense over the duration of the two-hour work–but Walberg disinterestedly leads us nowhere as he merely walks through the role of Davidson while giving us no reason to suspend our disbelief at the phenomenal scenario placed before us. Whereas Charlton Heston (understandably) refuses to acknowledge what stands before him, Davidson doesn’t bat an eye as he wholeheartedly accepts a world turned upside-down. Regrettably, Walberg’s poor central performance dilutes the otherwise steadfast efforts of Tim Roth, Paul Giamatti, and Helena Bonham Carter. Though, admittedly, the highlight of the show is irrefutably make-up guru and legend Rick Baker as he all but transplants the cast with primates.
It is at this point that the parallelism in Davidson’s love for Pericles and Ari’s love for the human astronaut is grossly overshadowed by Burton’s moot and all too coy decision to allow the role of Zaius, the dying paterfamilias of the simian society and the only primate to own a firearm, to be played by the spokesman for the National Rifle Association. And even though a clever instance of foreshadowing occurs in Ape City’s insignia being that of the Oberon, such lines as “Can’t we all just get along?” leave us shaking our heads instead of diligently contemplating with their contents.
Considering that the production of Planet of the Apes did not begin with Tim Burton as it was first handed down through a gaggle of tentative directors, much like the actors whom–after crossing a lake–arrive on the shore dry, the 2001 “reimaging” of Planet of the Apes leaves its audience’s expectations high and quite arid. Aside from not harboring the director’s trademark visual flair or characteristic quirkiness, Pierre Boulle’s tale is deprived of its potential for satire, social criticism, or the ability to provoke thought from a myriad of directions. In short, John Carpenter’s second-tier science fiction opera which appeared the same year–Ghosts of Mars–offers its viewers much more in a more entertaining, inviting, and appealing manner. What’s more, even though Planet of the Apes leaves one with the feeling that you’ve had to have missed something (considering who helmed the production), Burton’s film is so uninviting that the urge to double-check is superceded by the desire to roll the dice elsewhere.
. . . we won’t bother discussing the unapologetically trite, capricious, sequel-permitting twist ending that juvenilely mocks its predecessor.
-Egregious Gurnow
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