Planet Of The Apes (DVD)

...of this Summer’s latest blockbuster, Planet of the Apes. It was certainly costly and it does contain a great deal of grunting, battling and mayhem. It isn’t a film for PhD students to sharpen their wit on, but it is a surprisingly watchable film and will no doubt provide much fodder for Ciaoers for weeks to come.


~ THE PAST ~
The film, of course, is a remake of the 1968 Charlton Heston film, and follow-up ...
...14, Jaws 392, etc.). The Planet of the Apes sequels set the pattern. It also gave a new acceptability to sci-fi movies. Before it, they had been very definitely B-list films. 20th Century Fox, which made the original, went on to produce the ultimate sci-fi films - the Star Wars series.

The film was based on a book by a former spy, Pierre Boulle. It was based loosely on his experiences as a prisoner of war at the hands of the Japanese. ... more

Bill Bryson, while not a noted film critic, summed up Summer movies perfectly by calling them 'extremely costly mayhem'. I can’t help wondering what he makes of this Summer’s latest blockbuster, Planet of the Apes. It was certainly costly and it does contain a great deal of grunting, battling and mayhem. It isn’t a film for PhD students to sharpen their wit on, but it is a surprisingly watchable film and will no doubt provide much fodder for Ciaoers for weeks to come.

~ THE PAST ~
The film, of course, is a remake of the 1968 Charlton Heston film, and follow-up television series and films. Apparently it is the original Planet of the Apes film that we have to thank for all the sequels we are so used to today (Rocky 14, Jaws 392, etc.). The Planet of the Apes sequels set the pattern. It also gave a new acceptability to sci-fi movies. Before it, they had been very definitely B-list films. 20th Century Fox, which made the original, went on to produce the ultimate sci-fi films - the Star Wars series.

The film was based on a book by a former spy, Pierre Boulle. It was based loosely on his experiences as a prisoner of war at the hands of the Japanese. One of his other books was also made into a film - The Bridge on the River Kwai.

The original film cost a ‘mere’ £4 million, the new one cost £75 million.

~ THE TROUBLE WITH MAKE-UP ~
If the make-up for the original films was a break-through, for the new film, it is amazing. There were 80 make-up artists on the original (causing shortages on other films). The actors’ make-up made eating and drinking difficult. Difficult? They had it easy.

In the new film, one of the film’s stars, Helena Bonham Carter, said recently in an interview that she spent 4 hours in make-up each day - her days started at 3am and finished late in the evening. She described it as tortuous. Helena plays the chimp who helps the humans, Ari. In typical luvvie style, she gained inspiration from the role not from the television series but from - wait for it - Burmese democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi. Well, wouldn’t you?

The cast all had to learn how to be apes. They studied apes in the zoo and also spent time in what they called ‘ape school’. Helena Bonham Carter says that she failed ape school at first, claiming to have ADD - Ape Deficit Disorder. She is full of anecdotes from the film. She says that the actors playing apes had to learn to eat with the make-up masks on, which wasn’t easy. They ended up using mirrors to help the food find its way to their mouths under the rubber. The chief make-up artist gave them lessons in the unique art of ape eating. He said that Helena Bonham Carter was not the best at it.

The actors also had to put up with false teeth and they provided more complications. They had trouble talking through them at first. Some lines in the film actually had to be changed because the actors could not say the words through their dentures and masks.

They also had to learn how to walk like apes. Apes have flat feet, bent legs and don’t have any forward rotation of their hips. They walk with their weight on the outside of their feet. This wasn’t at all easy for the actors to learn - and it was rather hard on their ankles, which took most of the strain.

Some actors practised harder than others at the various new tasks. Michael Clarke Duncan (he was one of the voices in Cats & Dogs), who played Attar, a high-ranking gorilla, was very difficult to comprehend and fellow actors had to ask him to take his teeth out before they could understand what he was trying to say.

~ THE POLITICS ~
The original film was politically significant. It was at the height of the Cold War, nuclear weapons were causing a lot of worry and Americans lived in fear of Russia. The final scene in the original film featured a world that had been destroyed by nuclear war. Significantly, it also featured the Statue of Liberty, ruined. Commentators at the time were quick to pick up on the significance of the film.

The new film does not try to make a political statement, it simply tries to be a good film. The story is different and the characters are new (if familiar). This seems to have worked.

~ THE PLOT ~
Some of the plot is familiar from the original film – too familiar. It was probably a mistake. It does start differently, though. Apes are being used by space workers in experiments with spaceships. Our hero, Leo Davidson, (played well by Mark Wahlberg (he was also in The Perfect Storm and Three Kings. Not bad for a former rapper) is one of the astronauts. He is quite attached to his particular chimp, Paraclees, and is kind to him. Paraclees is chosen to go on a dangerous mission, which Davidson objects to, and is lost in space. Davidson goes after him and accidentally falls through a small wormhole into the future and onto a planet. This is where the similarities with the original film start. On this planet there are apes and there are humans. The apes have the power, education, intellect and right, the humans don’t. Some humans are wild, living in the woods, others have been domesticated by the apes and act as slaves.

Davidson is captured by the apes but escapes and takes a lot of humans with him. There is a not unexpected rebellion among the humans, lead by Davidson and aided by Ari, the chimp played by Helena Bonham-Carter. Ari is a spoiled brat, the daughter of a senator. Her saving feature is that she is non-conformist. One of the leading humans is Karubi, played by Kris Kristofferson (the former singer - the acting lessons seem to have paid off). All they have to do is beat the magnificently impressive gorilla army and get to a sacred temple (echoes of Tomb Raider) and much of the action centres on this.

I can remember feeling rather scared by the original film, as a child. Knowing the plot of this one helped and I didn’t feel at all uncomfortable – it just isn’t as shocking now. The only shocking part is the ending, but that’s just a twist in the tale. Apparently, nobody understands it, and it is best not to try.

I was surprised that the villains weren’t just gorillas, there were bad-guy chimps too. One of them is General Thade, played by Tim Roth (this is a departure for him, he usually prefers more violent movies. He was in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction). He is suspicious of the human slaves, believing them to be dangerously intelligent. He plans to kill them all. His 2nd-in-command is an impressive gorilla, Attar, played by Michael Clarke Duncan (the one who had trouble learning to speak in his mask). Michael Clarke Duncan is a huge man - 6ft 5in - which helps Attar to look even more impressive. He was also a big fan of the original Planet of the Apes so has brought some of that aura with him.

I thought it was a shame that they made a lovely orang-utan a bad character. His name is Limbo (!) and he is played by Paul Giamatti. He deals in human slaves and is only interested in profits. He is a terminal coward and quite a good character. In fact, he is given some of the best lines in the film.

I won’t go into too much of the plot as it would spoil it for you, I’ll just say that there is some confusing time-shifting. For example, Davidson finds that his spaceship has aged 1,000s of years in a few days.

~ THE ENDING ~
I can’t do a review of Planet of the Apes without mentioning the strange ending. Now obviously I can't give this away, so I won't say too much. I will speculate that the reason for choosing that ending will have had a lot to do with the possibility of making a sequel - and I rather liked it. It would have been just too cheesy to handle it any other way. The inclusion of the large inanimate object is an obvious nod to the original film, but is unique in this one. The story was generally good but there were too many unexplained things.

~THE DIRECTOR ~
The director merits a mention. He started as a Disney animator and cartoonist and chooses films that are slightly surreal – Batman Returns, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Mars Attacks. The guy’s a bit weird! He should probably start writing for Ciao, he would fit in nicely here.

He broke a rib while filming this movie but didn’t realise for 2 weeks. Now, call me strange (again) but doesn’t that sound like someone an experienced psychiatrist should be taking aside for a little chat?!

~ OTHER POINTS ~
The voices of the apes are rather strange, it is obvious that they had trouble speaking through their mask make-up - in fact most of the gorillas sound like Worf from Star Trek.

There is just too much action for me. A lot of it is dark and hard to see - but what else would you expect from Tim Burton? He must save a fortune on lighting in his films.

The chimps are excellent - particularly when they snarl and show their teeth. (They still do the nose-wrinkling thing that they did in the original film, which is cute.) The gorillas didn't work as well, they aren't as convincing.

I think they would have been better to deviate from the original storyline more, so it wouldn't be compared as much. It is better than the original, though. But so it should be - technology has advanced so much in the intervening years.

~ SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN? ~
Yes and no. There is no sex or bad language, but my usually unshakeable son has said that he doesn’t want to see this film because he saw one of the trailers and didn’t like the gorillas.

~ TRIVIA ~
* The United States Marines helped to coach the actors for the battle scenes.

* The final battle scene took place in the Mojave desert and there was worry that the actors would pass out from the heat in their ape costumes and make-up (as they had during the making of the original film). However, by the time they had begun filming the weather had changed and it was terribly cold.

* The ape encampment was built in the Arizona desert. The water was too cold for the actors, and had to be warmed. Aaah! These scenes were shot very close to where some scenes from the original film were made.

* The music was composed by Danny Elfman. He used unusual things to make unusual sounds, including dustbins and beer cans. The soundtrack for the original Planet of the Apes featured musicians playing their instruments with the mouthpieces on backwards. I tried this with my clarinet and nearly burst my lungs.

* The filmmakers tried to find a suitable jungle to film in for the swamp scenes, but couldn’t find one so built their own in the studios.

* The film opened in America to near record-breaking box office records (the record is still held by The Lost World, which made $72.1 million in 1997 – why?!). It made $69.6 million that weekend along.

* The original film made $25 million on its first day, which was a record in its time.

* When I review a film, I always do a bit of research to find out more about the actors/director, etc. In researching, fan clubs inevitably appear in the search engine’s listings. Tomb Raider had loads, especially for Angelina Jollie. I was very surprised to find that there are a lot for Planet of the Apes. Unusually, some of them have been going for a long time, thanks to the popularity of the original movies and TV series. If you are interested in that sort of thing, here’s one : http://simiancentral.homestead.com/central.html
The official Planet of the Apes site is at http://www.planetoftheapes.com

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BTW I know this is in the wrong category, I will move it when Ciao put up the new one.  

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