Flak Magazine: Review of Planet of the Apes, 8-3-01

Very near the heart of science fiction is the bond between the visceral and the intellectual, between style and substance. Sci-fi movies are a chance to create a new reality in which we examine our own. When the creation of that reality seems false, the result is a B movie, one that distracts from the message of the film. Because Hollywood has focused recently on the style and surface of sci-fi, aided by advances in computer animation and prosthetics, it has mostly left behind the notion that sci-fi can have a message or a purpose. This summer, however, has seen two high-profile attempts to return philosophy to the genre: A.I. and Planet of the Apes, a reinterpretation of the 1968 original.

Both films have the stunning visuals required to bring the audience into the world of the story (as well as into the multiplex). But A.I.'s argument was hazy, lost in the competing visions of two very different directors. Planet of the Apes presents itself much more clearly as the intellectual audience's sci-fi, holding its imagination with flawless presentation and engaging arguments.

The movie's style is first evident in its casting. Director Tim Burton knows to place all the interesting character actors behind ape masks, which is why we Mark Wahlberg as Captain Leo Davidson, a human astronaut stranded on a strange planet after passing through an electromagnetic storm. Upon crash landing, he meets the completely uninspiring Estella Warren and her father, played by the equally uninteresting Kris Kristofferson.

Thankfully, Wahlberg is quickly captured into slavery by the apes who rule this planet and provide viewers with some real acting to watch. Helena Bonham Carter presents a three-dimensional female chimpanzee, Ari, whose desires both Leo's freedom and Leo himself. Tim Roth plays General Thade, the leader of the ape military bent on the extermination of humans. Most enjoyable to watch is Paul Giamatti as Limbo, the orangutan slave trader. Giamatti has been a strong character actor in dozens of films, and his voice and mannerisms make him immediately recognizable behind his makeup. Charlton Heston also makes a cameo as Thade's father, much to the delight of those who remember him from the original film. Interestingly, his human-hating personality from the first transfers well to his new role on the other side of the species war.

Burton's status as auteur among his admirers is fueled in large part by his distinctive visual style. However, his goth waifs and fractured circus motifs from Beetlejuice to Batman are absent here. Instead, Burton's ape world seems fresh and original. From a city built on a hardened lava flow to an immaculate space station, Burton creates a believable world, uncluttered by his earlier cartoonery.

While great art is invoked by the painstaking design of the film's environmental details, the apes themselves provoke the most wonder. Special effects make-up artist Rick Baker, who last designed primates for Gorillas in the Mist, deserves as much praise for his artistic skill as his technical virtuosity. From the subtlety of General Thade's facial twitches to the grandiose, swaying body of the orangutan Senator Nado, every detail is rich and fascinating. This is proof the classic skills of makeup and puppetry can still make strides toward naturalism as great as those of computer animation praised in Final Fantasy. The original Planet of the Apes won much-deserved Oscars for best make up and costumes, and this version probably will, too.

But, behind the facade of Planet of the Apes lies a struggle with political and moral questions that makes this film hearken back to the days when sci-fi had substance. The popularity of the original five Planet of the Apes films was partly due to their social messages during turbulent times. From subtle jibes at popular culture to blatant visual references to antiwar protests, their stories had far more to them than simply "man versus ape." So too does the new Planet of the Apes, broaching similar topics of equality and religion as the first film. They are such timeless topics, however, that the movie still is fresh in its treatment of them.

Planet of the Apes posits that it is man's skill at and dependence upon technology that makes him both strong and dangerous. In the first film, apes had guns, but in this version the ape patriarch played by Heston says that the gun is the ultimate symbol of man's unique power. (With the extra baggage of Heston's political persona, however, it is hard to decide if his character is scorning man's creation of the gun or praising it.) How close is the tie between human spirit and human ingenuity? Does a young boy forlornly sharpening a spear in preparation for war suggest that he could win the war alone, or would he fail without advanced technology?

Planet of the Apes plays fast and loose with the distance between religion and secular history. Michael Clarke Duncan plays a pious gorilla, praying to his savior Semos (Moses?) and scolding those who don't. Carter's character says that religion is simply stories. Yet both confront a sudden change in their belief schemas, and the film suggests that ideologies adapt quickly and easily.

Of its myriad themes, however, equality takes up the majority of the film. There is a disturbing connection here between animal rights, anti-slavery arguments and racial equality. We are so far removed from the argument over slavery that any connection between animal rights and anti-slavery seems only to demean those people formerly held in bondage. At the time, however, people on one side saw it as a human rights issue, while those on the other could only have seen it as an animal rights issue. Maybe this split still exists today between those who see animals as our family and those to whom man's role is ruler.

While Planet of the Apes doesn't give complete answers to any of these questions, it poses them articulately. This is more than can be said for A.I., and it is tremendously more than can be said for any of the long line of summer blockbuster sci-fi films of the last few years. Everyone involved in this film should feel proud to have elevated big-screen science fiction back to the place it once held.

— Andy Ross (apross@earthlink.net)