Less thrills in 'the Apes'

By Joko E.H. Anwar

Planet of the Apes, **1/2 out of four stars; Adventure/Sci-Fi/Action, 120 minutes; Starring Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter, Paul Giamatti, Kris Kristofferson, Charlton Heston; Directed by Tim Burton; A 20th Century Fox/The Zanuck Company Production

JAKARTA (JP): Tim Burton's remake of the 1968 international phenomenon Planet of the Apes is campy, burdened with a lack of real thrills.

The project, just like any other attempt at remaking a highly successful classic, which spawned four sequels and two TV series -- one of which was animated, raised many eyebrows.

However, when the name of the director handling the project was mentioned, unspoken approval from many film audiences started to flow.

The iconoclastic filmmaker, who had succeeded in reinventing and injecting refreshingly new life to Batman and Sleepy Hollow was believed by many to be capable of delivering something as good as his previous works.

Plus, Burton has made it clear right from the beginning that people would have to accept the fact that the new film would be completely different from the original.

All right, I thought I could handle that. Besides, I could only recall very little of the original that I watched so long ago. Thus, I would not dare to compare the new and the old versions.

It so happened that I watched the film during the Independence Day celebrations, when the theater played an eerie short film and the audience were requested to stand up when the national anthem was played.

The sequences somehow became a perfect opening for watching the film about the upside-down world where apes rule the planet and humans are kept in cages.

But the real film starts out flat, lacking Tim Burton's usual Gothic touch, as it shows an American space station where the crew are training chimpanzees to do space exploration before sending humans to do the real job.

Mark Wahlberg plays Leo Davidson, one of the astronauts at the space station who is involved in the training and can do nothing when his unready genetically enhanced chimp is sent out in a spacecraft to take pictures of some disturbance in space.

When the chimp is declared missing, Davidson jumps into the spacecraft himself to investigate. The disturbance somehow time- warps the spacecraft, sending it to a planet where talking apes enslave humans.

Before, Tim Burton's highly distinctive style gave him problems when he tried to make the totally campy film Mars Attack!. And he's got the same problem here.

Before long, the audiences will find the film undecided as to whether it's going for camp or serious. They will also find it hard to suspend their disbelief about some elements which should not be considered as flaws when they exist in campy movies.

None of the apes, for instance, seem bright enough to make us believe they can have control over humans. All they can do is outrun horses and do the long jump.

Anyway, Leo gets himself caught by a human trader named Limbo (Paul Giamatti) and is then taken to the Ape City full of caves and tree houses.

Leo shares a cage with Karubi (Kris Kristofferson) and his beautiful daughter, Daena (Estella Warren).

When he thinks that his life is already doomed on the ape planet, a liberal-minded lady ape named Ari (Helena Bonham Carter) shows up to confront the human trader.

On the way, Leo gets to know Ari more, and Daena, who gets jealous of the two's closeness.

The problem between Leo and his freedom comes from General Thade (Tim Roth), a vicious, scary ape, who hunts him down when he and his friends runaway from the cage.

In all, the film definitely lacks Burton's Gothic style and humor. It could have been perfect if Burton put in some kind of social commentary without being preachy, like he successfully did in Edward Scissorhands or Ed Wood. Unfortunately, he didn't do so here.

The second half of the film is somewhat more enjoyable than the first as the audience will probably have learned the trick for enjoying it: You don't just have to forget about the original, you should also forget about the fact that it was directed by Tim Burton.

This time, we also get to see the apes doing ape-like things, leaping, running on all fours, not just actors in ape suits and masks.

The audiences are likely to enjoy the film's excellent facial prosthetics from Rick Baker.

The great make-up even makes Bonham-Carter look more interesting as an ape than Warren who is definitely gorgeous but blank.

But it is also because Bonham-Carter is such a good actress that even under a heavy mask, she can still make her character sexy.

Lisa Marie, the director's long-time companion, shows up in another enjoyably unique role just like she does in many of Burton's films, the most recent one being the Martian woman who walks strangely in Mars Attacks!

The twist in the ending is too silly, but somehow appropriate, since the rest of the film should have been equally as silly. Then, we would have had a full-scale campy, enjoyable film.