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PLANET
OF THE APES
6/10
USA
2001
director
: Tim Burton
script : William Broyles Jr, Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal (based on
novel by Pierre Boulle)
producers include : Richard D Zanuck
cinematography : Philippe Rousselot
editing : Chris Lebenzon
music : Danny Elfman
lead actors : Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter, Paul Giamatti
120 minutes
Planet
of the Apes is an entertaining movie, and you’d better go see it quickly,
before you read too many negative reviews from snobbier critics and get
put off. Adapted by, among others, William (Cast
Away) Broyles Jr, from Le Planete des Singes (‘Monkey
Planet’) by Pierre Boulle (who also wrote the book on which Bridge
on the River Kwai was based), it isn’t a difficult or subtle movie;
you can just sit back and enjoy it. That should place the genre closely
enough, without spoiling the theme or the plot.
At
best, this is a slick commercial picture, with its elements carefully
engineered – pretty girl (Estella Warren, who unfortunately doesn’t seem
to have had acting training), comic relief, thrills, chases – but when
expensive Hollywood engineering works, as it rarely does any more, the
results can be impressive. Burton has thought out the action in terms
of the wide screen, and he uses space and distance dramatically.
Rousselot’s
excellent colour photography helps to make the vast exteriors part of
the meaning. The editing, though, is somewhat cack-handed, especially
in the first hour. The makeup (there is said to be several million dollars
worth) and the costuming of the actors are rather witty. And Bonham Carter,
as an ape ‘human rights’ activist, somehow manages to give a better performance
in this makeup than she has ever given on the screen before.
nb
: The above is a re-imagining of Pauline Kael’s original (Feb 17,
1968) review of the original Planet of the Apes, anthologised in
her collection Going Steady. It is not a rewrite. I offer
some minor, more personal additions which I was unable to shoehorn into
the ‘proper’ review:
(1)
Planet of the Apes may be Tim Burton’s best movie! It may sound
like a bought-and-paid-for poster tagline, but from me, this isn’t extravagant
praise. I’ve never gone a bundle on any of his previous work - Scissorhands,
Batman, Mars Attacks, Sleepy Hollow, they’ve all
got their moments, in some cases plenty of moments. But they never
quite add up to the idea of the movie you have in advance. Apes,
on the other hand is pretty much as you’d hope and expect, and
Burton doesn’t go in for his usual self-indulgences. Turns out the big-budget
big-studio strait-jacket is just what he always needed after all. Towards
the end, I could actually feel my pulse racing.
(2)
Mark Wahlberg! If a visitor in a space capsule took off in, say, 1992,
and crash landed in America
2001,
surely the last person he’d expect to be the star of the biggest summer
movie would be Marky bloody Mark. But what a career it’s been. That army
picture with Danny DeVito that isn’t called Stand and Deliver.
Fear – opposite Reese Witherspoon! Outshining Leo in Basketball
Diaries, then the breakthrough with Boogie
Nights. The Big Hit, never released in the UK. Three
Kings, then a more commercial breakthrough with Perfect Storm,
and back to the arthouses in The
Yards. (Have I missed any?) And up to another level again with
Apes, in the role originally slated for Arnie when James Cameron
was supposed to direct. But now it’s the ideal vehicle for Hollywood’s
most cheerfully simian young star.
(3)
That new ‘twist’ ending! At first it seems breathtakingly audacious, apparently
nodding to Will Self’s novel Great Apes. But then they try for
another twist, which almost undoes whatever good stuff’s gone before.
But these aren’t really twists (i.e. Shyamalan-style) at all in that they
don’t tell us anything new about what we’ve just been watching. And it
isn’t really the ending, it’s more accurately a coda, as it’s separate
from the main narrative. The climax of which, incidentally, deserves credit
for featuring the most outrageously literal example of deus ex machina
ever committed to celluloid.
17th
August, 2001
(seen Aug-17-01, UGC Boldon)
by Neil
Young
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