“Get your stinking paws off me, you damn, dirty human!”

PoolMan’s rating: You’ve finally made a monkey out of meeeeeee…

PoolMan’s review: The surefire, unarguable truth of the recent trend of remaking (or “reimagining” as Planet of the Apes director Tim Burton terms it) classic movies and TV shows of yesteryear is that you absolutely can NOT get away without being compared to your source material. I mean, when Charlie’s Angels came out last year, there were angry debates in the papers about whether to go in a new direction, or just stick to the old “giggles and jiggles” formula. It’s Charlie’s Angels, for crying out loud! It’s fluffy female fighting fantasy!

Sadly, I’ve already seen the new Planet of the Apes get thrown under the wheels of comparative reviewing which, as natural as it may be, is kind of unfair. I mean, to update a classic like Charlton Heston’s simian opus is going to be tough, right? Why not just let the filmmakers do what they do, and we’ll either hate or love the result?

Well, having seen the original I admit it’s impossible not to compare, however much I dislike doing it. If you go into Planet of the Apes 2001 hoping for a movie with more heart, more political ambition, and more hambone acting from future presidents of the NRA, you’re likely to be disappointed (unless Marky Mark Wahlberg has a thing for rifles we don’t know about yet). But if you want something with a darker tone, far greater visuals, and ambitious use of good-looking women made up as orangutans, this is still a damn fun movie.

The story is similar in most respects to the original but actually comes closer to the novel both movies are based on, La Planète des Singes, or Monkey Planet, by Pierre Boulle. An astronaut crash lands on a distant planet and finds out its overrun with speaking, intelligent apes who’ve enslaved the human population of the planet. He rails against them, kisses an ape, snags a human babe, and… well, the endings differ, but you get the point. It’s not exactly War and Peace here. But it’s still a far cry from a kick in the pants.

A lot has been said about the visuals and the makeup that turn men into apes, and let me say the apes are flat-out amazing. The faces have a level of detail that the 1968 prostheses could never hope for in their day and fully, believably create a race of smart (and varied) monkeys. The actors playing the apes also went to some pains to simulate simian walking, fighting, grunting (a LOT of grunting), and even seduction (!). It’s awesome to see apes who act something like apes.

Of particular note is Tim Roth as the hostile Thade. He is simply awesome playing the violent general, a bottle of barely contained animal rage. I enjoyed every second he had onscreen and found myself wishing he’d catch Wahlberg just to see him pound his chest.

I will say this about the much-ballyhooed ending. What… the… hell…? The pseudo-science used in the rest of the flick made so much sense, why did they have to go and ruin it all in the last two minutes? Do yourself a favour when you see the movie. When Wahlberg makes it back into space, close your eyes, cover your ears, and make that “lalalala” noise so you can’t make out the ending. It made no sense at all.

The new Planet of the Apes is ambitious, to be sure. It’s trying to follow in the footsteps of one of the most beloved cult films of all time, and that’s a tough act to follow. In terms of spirit and message, it lags. However, after a dreadful year 2000, it’s nice to see something of this scope and effort, with a twinkle in its eye reminding you of its forbearer. Overall, it’s more fun than (all together now) a barrel full of monkeys.

Canuck Alert! Pouty, leggy Daena is played by Ontario native Estella Warren, eh?

DnaError’s rating: A 100-Million-Dollar Fanfic

DnaError’s review: “Damn dirty apes. You blew it up. I hate every ape I see. It’s madness! KHAAAN!”

Okay, now that I got all of that out of my system I can begin this review. Planet of the Apes was one of the few recent movies I’ve seen with a full house. I walked in expected an action movie given the Burton treatment, but what I got was an action movie with an Elfman score.

The plot is more or less the same as the original with a few major alterations in plot and characters. Marky Mark travels in his space tadpole to a planet where apes rule and humans drool. He escapes with Ms. Perky Boobs and Ari, a liberal tree-hugging ape, trying to find away home while being perused by the grunting General Thade.

The first 30 minutes of his movie is impressive. I had settled down for what appeared like typical Burton fare. The Ape City looked grand, kind of Imperial Rome meets the Tiki Room. The ape makeup was realistic in tight close-ups and the actors moved freely in them. It toyed with some issues.. animal rights, the decadent apes vs. the human slaves, a playful little love triangle between Ari and Marky.

But once they got out Ape City, the movie took a nosedive into mediocrity and began to play out like every other action movie made since 1980. Large action scenes, deus ex machinas, plucky young kid, and inspiring “rally the troops” pep talk. I expected more from Tim Burton, none of his movies have ever come close to being this, well, normal.

The acting is hit or miss; Whalberg’s key skill seems to be his eyebrows fighting it out. Ms. Perky Boobs always has a deer-trapped-in-headlights expression. Ari (Helena Bonam-Carter) fills the role of the Burton outsider nicely, shining through five inches of latex. And General Thade moves and acts like a mad chimpanzee, bouncing about with an insane fury.

But, it’s not enough. After a solid half hour of brisk action, imaginative sets and light humor, it all fell apart. The movie dragged through its inventible conclusion to an ending that can only be described as hilariously bizarre. It’s not totally Burton’s fault; he was a last-minute addition to the project and had studio execs breathing down his neck. So what we get is Burton-lite, a standard action movie with only a few of the visual punches and imagination we’ve come to expect.

Justin’s rating: Why, why, why was Pauly Shore not cast in this film?

Justin’s review: The thing with big-budget summer flicks is that Hollywood likes to throw talent and story and acting to the wind, as plenty of cash is splashed around on special effects and a massive marketing campaign. The result of which are movies that you pretty much can’t avoid but you’d also never pick up again in the video store.

As you may have guessed, Planet of the Apes was a disappointment. It’s greatly unfortunate that these filmmakers were handed a killer IP and apes and hooting — and then let it all sit out in the sun and ripen to a mild stench. The special effects are there. The makeup is there. The marketing campaign all but broke into my apartment and branded “SEE PLANET OF THE APES” on my forehead. Yet I left the theater thinking that what I got was another heaping portion of Hollywood eye candy and not much else.

The setup for the movie is pretty dumb to start with. There’s a space station near Saturn or somewhere (set in the year 2029, which is pretty unrealistic considering our current space program) that uses chimps as test pilots for deep-space anomalies. This is bizarre and never explained. Why they couldn’t just program the onboard computer to pilot drones by remote, I don’t know. I guess they just get a kick out of seeing monkey heads explode when the air runs out.

Anyway, Marky Mark loses his favorite monkey in a space storm of some kind, chases it, and promptly crash lands on an alien planet. That’s the setup. It’s so thin I could filter coffee through it.

Marky Mark (who has one expression, a blend of Confused and Ashamed) meets up with some nasty apes who are rounding up humans as slaves. Of course, he’s the first human to dare defy the apes (who, admittedly, look pretty cool and move very simian-like), and escapes with the help of an attractive ally to wander off and do stuff.

That might as well be the plot of the film, because there really isn’t any other motivation given to Marky Mark. He wanders off and does stuff. And apes chase him, so he wanders further and does more stuff. There comes a moment when I became desensitized to all the coolness of the ape makeup and special effects, and that’s when the Dullness set in. Yes, we all know the Dullness. It’s that point in a movie where you realize that there’s no hope for it to get any better than it is… and it’s really not that great right now. With the exception of Ed Wood, this has never happened to me in a Tim Burton flick, except for now.

Planet of the Apes is kind of boring.

Really, all that was left after I reached that point was to wait for the trick ending. That came and went, was mildly interesting, and made absolutely no sense whatsoever. I mean, from a plot writer’s perspective, it was kind of a cool twist, just as long as nobody thought about it for too long or too hard. There’s at least a missing piece of info or two that would explain the ending; I’m just not seeing it. I can think of a half dozen ways to explain it, but none are supported by the film.

So thus ends a rather standard journey of the Summer Blockbuster, which will cash in like crazy and be forgotten by this time next year.