2001 Planet of the Apes

• Director: Tim Burton
• Writers: William Broyles Jr., Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal (Based on the novel by Pierre Boulle)
• Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Clarke Duncan, Paul Giamatti, Estella Warren
• Runtime: 120 minutes
• Trailer Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwhGmiEoQXs

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

In the far distant future of 2029, an astronaut lands on a planet where apes rule, and humans are slave labor. It’s a reboot and reimagining of the 1968 original, with practical makeup and prosthetics. Kind of an interim between the original series of the 60s and 70s and the CGI heavy “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” which started the modern reboot series in 2011. It’s not bad, quite entertaining, but also unnecessary.

Spoilery Synopsis

A normal-looking monkey flies a spaceship and works the controls. Things go badly, but it’s only a simulator. It’s the year 2029, and there’s a huge space station orbiting Saturn. Captain Leo Davidson and a bunch of scientists are out there training apes.

Suddenly, the lights go out. A space storm approaches, and they start getting TV broadcasts from many different time periods. Leo wants to pilot the ship out there because he doesn’t believe the monkeys can handle it, but the commander overrules him.

Pericles the ape pilots his ship into the storm, as instructed. They soon lose his signal. The commander wants to give up, so Leo hops in a pod and launches himself after Pericles. A space disturbance hits both pods, and something strange happens. Leo loses power but soon sees the chronometer going crazy. He does an emergency landing on the strange planet below.

Leo finds himself on a forest planet, in the middle of a bunch of humans that are running from — apes! Many of the humans, including Leo, are captured in nets and beaten. The apes then lead a procession of human prisoners to their city.

They’re taken to a slave trader, Limbo, who’s a hoot. General Thade and his assistant Attar walk through, and it’s clear they’re in charge. Thade’s niece wants one of the human children to play with, and Limbo has no choice but to donate it.

Limbo gets to branding the slaves, but then Ari, a human-friendly ape activist, interrupts. She thinks humans can be taught to live with them as equals. She buys Leo and a blonde woman as house servants. Ari’s father is a senator, and he doesn’t care for humans.

The senator has guests over, including another senator and General Thade. Thade talks about his ailing father. Thade is all for eliminating the entire human population, but there are financial reasons for keeping them around.

Thade’s men find the remains of Leo’s space pod and let him know about it. He then kills the soldiers who know about it.

Meanwhile, Leo knows some tricks and uses them to escape their cages. They run through the town, causing all kinds of mischief. Ari and her bodyguard, Krull, help them, and Thade soon hears about that.

They all make their way to Leo’s crash site, but his ship has sunk. He dives in and retrieves a supply bag. He’s got a radio, but can’t talk to his ship; he can, however, get a direction toward where they are. They run into and take Limbo along as a hostage.

Thade uses the situation to convince the senator to declare martial law, so he can purge the planet of all the humans. He talks to his own sickly father, who explains that this has all happened before, and way back in the past, humans were the masters and apes the slaves. He’s even got proof, an old human-made pistol. He warns Thade not to allow the humans to reach Calima, which has the secret of their origins.

Meanwhile, Ari tells Leo and the others about Calima, where they originally came from, but maybe that’s just a religious fairy tale. Leo’s tracker seems to be pointing in that direction. But first, they have to steal some horses and cross a river while avoiding a whole camp of Attar’s apes.

Leo’s group soon reaches Calima, which is the space station from earlier, but it’s been crashed on the planet for a very long time. There are no survivors present. Turns out, Calima is “Caution: Live Animals.” Yes, these modern apes have all descended from his own experiments in training apes. Leo watches the ship’s logs and finds out what happened.

Apparently, all the humans everywhere have learned about Leo and show up outside. All the apes are not far behind.

Ari turns herself in to Thade, who wants to trade herself for the lives of the humans. He doesn’t buy what she’s selling and sends her back to die with the humans.

Meanwhile, Leo has a plan to defeat the ape army using some trick with the Oberon. As the thousands of ape soldiers charge, the space station’s engines ignite, blowing up many of them.

Thade’s had enough waiting, and they all start the big battle. Attar and Krull face off, old teacher and mean pupil. Attar easily wins. Thade, on the other hand, has eyes only for Leo.

The apes are easily winning, but suddenly, there’s a boom from the sky and another space pod lands. Turns out, it’s Pericles, who is a much better pilot than Leo ever was. The apes think he’s the second coming of Cemos, and all bow down.

Thade isn’t giving up so easily. He chases Leo and Pericles into the ship and there’s another fight. Pericles brought a blaster, and the ape and the man fight over it. Thade gets the gun, but he’s also trapped in the animal chamber.

Everything starts to settle down, and Leo finds that Pericles’s pod can still be used. He wants to use it to go home. He blasts off and soon finds that same space-storm. He retraces his steps and soon sees Earth. He comes in over Washington DC and picks up radio transmissions. He crashes into the Lincoln Memorial, which doesn’t feature Lincoln: It’s Thade instead. Police show up, and they’re all apes as well.

What?

Brian’s Commentary

It’s probably easiest to compare this to the 1968 original. This is much fast-paced, with Leo in Ape City in the first twenty minutes. Then again, since everyone knows how the story goes they can dispense with the suspenseful reveal.

At one point, we see two planets or moons in the sky, so this isn’t our Earth. They obviously had plans for sequels, but the movie flopped, so that never happened.

This time around, the humans can speak, which kinda limits how “special” Leo is compared to the others. Unlike the newer Ape series, the characters here are all done with practical effects, more like the original series, but it’s clear that the makeup and prosthetics have gotten much better.

It all looks really good, but the story is just too neat and tidy; everything wraps up too cleanly except for the twist in the final scene. I didn’t hate it, but this is one of those films that doesn’t really improve on the source materials (the films, not the book).

Kevin’s Commentary

We’d better get on the ball if we want a space station like that in the next three years.

So, the space storm wasn’t just messing with time, it was sending them to different dimensions as well.

I do like the practical effects way better than the CGI motion capture of the modern reboot series that started in 2011. Though I can see why the actors would prefer the CGI. That’s a lot of hours getting it on and off every day, and a lot of hours in it all day.

I thought this was pretty good, and I know it gets a lot of hate. It’s not deserved. Not a perfect movie, but it’s entertaining.