Film Review - Planet of the Apes (From Western Telegraph)

Film Review - Planet of the Apes

Director: Tim Burton Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Roth, Michael Clarke Duncan Cert. 15.

I really like Tim Burton.

Hes the only director who has reinvented a genre that has effected cinema almost as much as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg in my lifetime. Great films come and go from directors of various pedigree but few do to the film market what Tim Burton did when he made Batman with Michael Keaton.

If you could sum up the Burton style in a word it would undoubtedly be dark.

His constant originality, always choosing an odd way to do an odd choice of film, makes sure he is always challenging himself to do something special and fresh.

Planet of the Apes is a remake, or, as Burton insists, a reimagining of a movie that became a genre unto itself. The original 1968 star, Charlton Heston, played an astronaut who crash-lands on a planet where evolution has had a reverse result. The apes are a dominant race.

This time its Perfect Storm star, Mark Wahlberg whos the new kid on the block as it were. He takes the Heston role of stolid American, Leo Davidson, again finding the new order hard to cope with on the planet. He teams up with Princess Ari to help the savage humans overcome the rule of evil General Thade and then escape from the planet.

But will he? Though the original had some controversy as it applied its central reversal of apes acting like humans and humans acting like apes to the turmoil of America, our times are slightly different. The civil rights questions are there, but they are broadened to question our treatment of all other living things.

It looks amazing and I was buzzing when I left the cinema having just witnessed something incredible. That may wear off... The technology from veteran make-up man Rick Baker is amazing, allowing Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Roth and all the apes an amazing range of movement while under inches of rubber make up.

The real film, by that I mean the script and the acting, are not actually that good. Its ending has been rejigged many times to keep the press and internet guessing and Ill say no more. I just cant decide whether Wahlberg is right for this kind of role, but he is a fine actor and I did enjoy his performance if not the lines he had to say, which often reeked of American cheese.

Roth and Bonham Carter are great at being apes. Proof perhaps that movie acting is all in the eyes.

This is not the best film of the year I hope, but its doing record breaking (monkey) business at the box office. Without doubt, a must see cinema experience that you might just go bananas for.