Word: planetful
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Among the things I learned about "Planet of the Apes" director Tim Burton from the A&E "Biography" that aired Tuesday in the midst of "Biography Goes Ape Week": His childhood hero was Vincent Price. Most of the cast of "Beetlejuice" initially wanted nothing to do with the film. (Good instinct, in my opinion.) "Edward Scissorhands" was basically a relating of Burton growing up in the Hollywood uber-burb of Burbank...
...argument here. "Planet of the Apes" was indeed a fine-looking movie, from the setting to the shots of the apes loping into battle to, well, to Estella Warren and her highly evolved hairdo. That was to be expected from the director of "Scissorhands," "Batman," the even better-looking "Batman Returns," and "Sleepy Hollow." And I?m happy for Burton, whose cachet as one of Hollywood?s bankable directors has been in the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately category since "Mars Attacks," (which I actually liked, but no one else did) - the movie opened to the tune...
...because of the visual style. It would be capricious to declare that a planet on which apes are superior to men must be the sun-baked, post-apocalyptic desertscape in Franklin J. Schaffner?s original. The planet on which Mark Wahlberg crashes is dark, moody and marshy - in fact, it?s alarmingly similar to the one in "Empire Strikes Back," in which men are ruled by wrinkled green Jedi instructors - and that?s OK. Dark and moody is Burton?s thing, and he does it well; take what...
...Burton?s "reimagining" did score one outright coup. The insight that apes, if they did indeed take over a planet, would still behave very much like apes - and even more so when angry or otherwise aroused - was a clear improvement on Schaffner?s stiffly human-aping overlords. Led by Tim Roth?s manic and maniacal (if slightly hammy) turn as General Thade and Helena Bonham Carter's incredible suffusing of her liberal-princess chimp with a warm and sexy glow, the hairy actors rule this movie. And of course Burton?s choice of Rick Baker as makeup man made...
...even go so far as to say that "Planet of the Apes" was far and away the summer?s best popcorn-movie blockbuster - though that?s not going very far at all, considering that this is the season that saw the theatrical release of "Spy Kids: Special Edition." But good-looking, action-packed summer popcorn movies should, at least, be a dime a dozen, and left to the Michael Bays of the world. The directors who happen to like scripts about wacky misfits who save the world or wearily heroic everymen who are just trying to get home to their...