Skip to main contentIt was inevitable: Sooner or later there would be a new Planet of the Apes film. What some of you younger readers may not realize is that there was a time when Planet of the Apes was the biggest thing to happen to movies. It was Star Wars before there was a Star Wars. It was one of the first film franchises, spawning multiple sequels, two television series and a merchandising blitz that included toys, clothes, candy, trading cards, comic books, kitchenware and more.
Now, 33 years after Charlton Heston found himself on a planet where evolution had been turned upside down, filmmaker Tim Burton has taken us back to the place where apes rule supreme.
Mark Wahlberg stars as Leo Davidson, a hotshot air-force pilot who hops into his souped-up space pod to rescue a highly intelligent chimp lost during a mission. When Leo's pod gets caught in an electromagnetic storm, our hero is propelled centuries into the future, where he crash-lands on an uncharted planet. But he ain't alone. This planet is populated by--you guessed it--talking apes! Next thing you know Leo is caught in a struggle between oppressed humans and militant simians led by General Thade (Tim Roth), a psychotic chimpanzee leader.
Originally released in 1968, Planet of the Apes was a six-million-dollar gamble. Based on a novel by Pierre Boulle, it was a film project that languished in development for several years, looking for a studio that was willing to take a risk on a film about talking monkeys. Producer Arthur P. Jacobs shopped the script that had been adapted by Twilight Zone's Rod Serling and retooled by Michael Wilson, a writer who had been blacklisted during Hollywood's Red Scare. Originally, director Blake Edwards was attached to the film, with Jack Lemmon set to star as the human lead and Shirley MacLaine in the main female chimpanzee role. But before the film became a reality, Edwards and Lemmon left the project, and other actors--Steve McQueen and Paul Newman among them--were mentioned for the lead role. Finally, Heston signed on, bringing with him director Franklin Schaffner. The rest is history.
Considered one of the best science-fiction films of all time, the original Planet of the Apes was more than a fantasy/action film. A complex mix of well-developed characters, it addressed issues of the time: racism, the threat of war and the dangers of a society that had no separation between church and state. The scene in which Heston stands trial simply for being human, while chimpanzees Dr. Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) and Dr. Zira (Kim Hunter) stand trial as human sympathizers, bears an eerie resemblance to the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s, in which writer Wilson answered charges of being a communist sympathizer.
Burton's film has no such depth, opting instead for characters painted with very broad strokes and a story so simple it may even make children roll their eyes. More of a remake than anyone involved in the film cares to admit, this Planet of the Apes ventures into new ways of telling the same story. While there's no Statue of Liberty ending and there's much more action in this film than in the other five Apes movies combined, it's still pretty much the same movie.
The failure of Burton to tell a complex story (or a compelling one for that matter) is no great surprise. Burton's films are often fun to look at, but the plots offer little in the way of actual mental stimulation. Planet of the Apes is no different: It looks great, showing off the effects and technology of the day to create a visual masterpiece, but the story is by-the-numbers. Having long since proven himself to be an actual actor, Wahlberg gives a decent performance, but anyone from George Clooney to Matt Damon could have done the same job. The real star of Apes is Roth, who gives a performance that will go down in cinematic history as one of the greatest portrayals on villainy on the big screen.
Considering how bad recent remakes such as Shaft and Gone in 60 Seconds have been, people could have expected this to be a lot worse than it is. As it stands, Planet of the Apes will never have the status of the original. But it is better than some of the sequels and is, ultimately, a planet worth visiting.
PG-13
Opens Friday, July 27.
Original
star Charlton Heston has a cameo as a chimpanzee, while Linda Harrison (Nova in the 1968 film) appears here as a captured human.
The makeup effects for
were done by Rick Baker, whose credits include
,
and Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video.
WWeek 2015