Planet of the Apes

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Planet of the Apes

Planet of the Apes:

Tim Burton manages to shell out a huge disappointment in his much anticipated "re-imagining" of a classic movie. While the apes and the environment are certainly better imagined, most of the characters are so underdeveloped that we find ourselves not caring what the outcome is. Burton takes a great opportunity and offers no more than 2 hours worth of shallow eye-candy.

The areas of potential for this movie were merely hinted at when at least one of them should have been fully explored. For instance, General Thade (Tim Roth) and Attar (Michael Clarke Duncan) were suppose to have some sort of deep bond, but Burton didn't see fit to bring any of that to light. How about the father-daughter relationship between Daena (Estella Warren) and her father (Kris Kristofferson)? Kristofferson barely had any lines and yet we're suppose to care when he gets killed? They might as well have cast an extra instead of paying good money for Kristofferson whose talents went to waste in this movie. Most importantly, there were great possibilities with the sexual tension between Leo (Mark Wahlberg) and Ari (Helena Bonham Carter). Instead of the superficial relationship that Burton gives us, he could have gone with the romantic relationship that was originally in the script. Supposedly there was a love scene that was left on the cutting room floor but Burton would have been far better off leaving it in. That way, we would have at least felt the intended conflict when Leo is about to leave and Ari asks him to stay. All this potential and it was wasted.

There you have it... many possibilities and Tim Burton chose to ignore them. I guess this is one of those times I get to say to myself, "Even I could have done a better job with this movie." Hopefully Burton won't try to "re-imagine" any of the other Apes' sequels. This one never should have been "re-imagined" in the first place.

-Tso