Planet Of The Apes (2001)

 

Genre: Sci-Fi/ Action

Time: 2hours

Director: Tim Burton

Quick Summary: In 2029, an Air Force astronaut crash-lands on a mysterious planet where evolved, talking apes dominate a race of primitive humans.

For such a shit film why did they give us such a juicy ending

Okay, I'll give this credit. This looked really good and stylistic. I really liked how the apes were designed, leaning more towards humans with monkey characteristics in which we get fully clothed, waddling, swinging, odd-looking apes with various different hairstyles. The makeup for their faces was done well too, but they looked solid and difficult to move which made some of the talking scenes look a bit funny. As for the world, it seems really primitive but styled almost towards Asian culture. The issue is, it's too damn dark and it was difficult to see anything.

As I am someone who has seen and loves the original, it was surprising to see in this remake that the humans could talk. The fact that humans couldn't talk originally was a big factor in the original story of why the apes disliked the humans and felt as if they were the more intelligent and better species. So for this one, their talking wasn't even a surprise to the apes, which just leads to more questions on why they even hate them.

I felt sorry for Helena Bonham Carter who was working so hard to bring some life into this film but whenever she interacted with anyone it just flatlined. Paul Giamatti was honestly a saving grace throughout this film. If it wasn't for his funny one-liners every few minutes I would have died of boredom.

Now this was something bizarre but why the hell could these apes jump so damn high and fast. It was like they were being catapulted from one place to another. After a while, it became more comedic than anything to watch these apes literally fly into the air. As well, everyone was so damn angry in this. It seemed like if there wasn't a chase scene going on, there was a massive fight and someone got killed, and if that wasn't happening some random monkey was getting killed.

I'd give this a miss. It pays no tribute to the original strips the plot down to the bare shallow aspects, and then makes it boring. Shame for that ending though as it would have been brilliant to see the history of Aperaman Lincoln.

3/10

"The young ones make great pets. Just make sure you get rid of them before they mature. Believe me, the last thing you want is a human teenager running around your house."