A film review by Rachael Vice Copyright © 2001 Rachael Vice

He astounded everyone with BATMAN and gave life to the campfire scare story SLEEPY HOLLOW. Now Tim Burton attempts to resurrect the story of 'Ape vs. Human' in the re-make of PLANET OF THE APES.

Upon trying to help a monkey in danger, Leo (Mark Wahlberg), too, finds himself in danger after making a splash-landing on Earth - Earth in the very far future, that is. On futuristic Earth, Leo finds the species' he nearly died for are now the evolved tyrants of homo sapiens' once humble home. Evolution leads to Revolution, and the fight for best mammal begins.

My real grudge against this movie was the casting. Mark Wahlberg's only good credit was BOOGIE NIGHTS. Every other movie you see him in, including this one, his facial expression never changes. It's depressing to watch him. Even when he's safe and with plenty of allies, it looks like he thinks someone has a gun to his head. Read between the lines, Marky.

There was also problems with the apes body language. Tim Roth and Helena Bonham Carter did fabulous in their simian roles. They walked like apes, even twisted their joints like apes in some scenes, and let out occasional shrieks of annoyance like apes. Every other ape walks and talks exactly like humans. Did these actors not know they had ape prosthetics on their bodies when they were making this movie?!

As I stated above, Tim Roth and Helena Bonham Carter should be winners of like an Academy Award for primates they did so well. Obviously they did good as apes but they also portrayed their characters emotions and belief's very well. Roth, the baddie, was also kind of scary in some scenes. Very convincing.
Alright, the movie was pretty good, too. Some of you will probably sit down to see this wondering why you're going to see a movie with apes ruling the planet, but it's actually not so bad. Great plot, great directing, great visuals and wasn't that the best score? It's disappointing to see that this movie could be near flawless had the casting and/or acting been better.
Nothing to go bananas over, though.

Final Rating:  * * *  of  * * * *

	Running Time: 110 Min | Rated: PG-13 | US Release: July 27th | More >>

Related Links:

• Official Site
• The Tim Burton Collective
• MovieWeb - Planet of the Apes