: Planet of the Apes
Director: Tim Burton
Interesting film. Good fun. Not intellectually taxing, but visually appealing. The plot’s a little simple for such a big budget flick, but it works, except the tacked on “complicated” ending weakens it. It’s not a remake, which I liked. Some good performances. Mark Walberg’s rather invisible as the human lead, and Helena Bonham Carter somehow still comes across as human. But Tim Roth as the evil ape is absolutely magnificent: completely believable as an ape with his frantic outbursts of rage, flickering eyes and rapid movements, and yet human in his greed and lust. He’s an evil character with little good (unlike so many “gray” evil characters in modern films), which is a refreshing change as you can root for his demise with no guilt. The film looks great, has a nice twist midway through, and the apes are definitely an improvement over the original film, but the film wasn’t as dark as I would have liked. At times the film reminded me of the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park — remarkably evil and frightening — but then it would make the apes do human-like things and they’d lose their power to frighten. Overall, it’s a fun flick and worth seeing if you liked the original and/or enjoy science fiction.
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