A whopping 1 out of 5 on the Josh-O-Meter.
That 1 can be divided about equally as follows:
- The makeup and ape visuals were extremely well done.
- The plot uses a vaguely Uplift-type scenario.
- Helena Bonham Carter is really cute as Ari.
SPOILERS FOLLOW!
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...
...
...
Here we are in the future. First, a quick look back at how we got here.
Where's here? In orbit around Saturn at a slick USAF research station stolen
from the Trade Federation in SW:TPM. When's here? 2029 - optimistic, ain't
they?. Leo (Mark Wahlberg) is a pilot who doesn't get to fly - it's not
safe, so they're training apes (chimps, orangs, gorillas) to pilot the
ships. Not just any apes, though, these ones are genetically engineered to
be smarter. Why exactly isn't it safe to send a human pilot on an EVA? Stop
asking dumb questions. Oh, but wait! Suddenly there's an electromagnetic
storm outside! It takes everyone by surprise, and they're getting weird TV
signals from Earth's past. Let's send a chimp (Pericles) to investigate! The
storm is portrayed as coming as a surprise, but there doesn't appear to be
any other purpose in having the research station, or training the apes.
Other than the view of Saturn, of course.
Periclies' signal is lost. Leo defies orders and hops in a pod (like the
pods from 2001, but with a tail and no arms, begging the question of how
this plan will work) and flies out to rescue Pericles. He catches up to
Pericles pod, but it gets sucked into a wormhole on loan from Deep Space 9
(but pink). Moments later - slurp, he's sucked in too. His digital
chronometer zooms from 2029 to 2600-something. A brief pause to catch his
breath while all his instruments are dead ("Black, blacker, blackest...")
Pop, another effect and now he's in orbit of an Earth-like planet. Could it
be Earth? Nope, several large moons in close orbit. So the plot isn't the
same as the original flick. Get that straight.
Not much of an orbit, though, since he plows into the atmosphere and does a
crash landing through a jungle into a small pond. Unlike the original movie,
none of the crew dies. Since there was only Leo I suppose they needed to
make that change. Leo swims to the surface and is caught in a stampede of
cave-humans being chased by armed gorillas and chimps that have the full
Uplift thing happening. Again, great makeup. The apes are obviously way, way
stronger than the humans, which is sort of the point of the flick - strength
leads to power. Power leads to hate. Hate leads to... um, sorry, distracted.
Leo gets rounded up with the rest of the humans - who, by the way, can talk
just fine. Before he's loaded into the cage he meets Thade (Tim Roth), a
chimp general, and Attar (Michael Clarke Duncan) his right hand gorilla.
Attar gets to utter the immortal line, "Get your hands off of me you damn,
dirty human." (No, I'm not kidding.) Their makeup is great; Thade looks far
more like a real adult chimp than 99% of movie chimps, really grizzled and
rough. The rest of the chimps look like the chimps from the original movies.
Leo doesn't say much during this first 10 minutes of the movie. Well, maybe
15. The point is he's just along for the ride like the audience. In the cage
with Leo are a few characters, none of whom are notable. We pan a couple of
times past The Kid, The Chick, and The Chick's Father (Chris Christopherson)
and the rest of the lot.
The cage full of about 20 humans is wheeled into Ape City (which is visible
from the edge of the jungle, which was walking distance from the crash site,
but no-one saw the crash), which appears to be built on a volcanic lava flow
but otherwise bears a striking resemblence to Tashbaan (see
www.calormen.com), except full of trees. Since the apes are great climbers
there are trees and ropes and vines everywhere. There are stone buildings
and stairs, so the overall effect is that of an overgrown temple from some
random adventure movie. There is no consistent architecture or a good
overview of the true extent of ape civilization, though the military has
stylish tailors.
Some kids start throwing rocks at the passing cage, when a chimp Ari (Helena
Bonham Carter) shows up. She's a human rights activisit, thinking humans and
apes should be able to co-exist. She scolds the children and makes moon eyes
at Leo.
Now would be a good time to stop and take stock of the social climate here.
Unlike the original movies, these apes know full well that humans are
intelligent, can talk, make clothing and tools, etc. Rather than a
humans-vs.-beasts allegory, we're looking at a slavers-vs.-slaves allegory,
and - weakly - racism. I actually liked that, since in view of what's to
come it makes one more optimistic about the outcome, and the original movies
were a little strained.
Leo and the other humans are taken to a slaver/keeper/petstore kind of deal;
an orang slaver named Limbo (the comic relief character; picture Jim Carey's
Grinch painted orange) was rounding them up for sale as pets and pack
beasts. Speaking of which, Thade shows up with his (wife? sister?) in tow
and her daughter. The orang gives the daughter a real live female human
child as a doll. Awww, isn't that sweet? "Remember to get rid of it before
it gets too old. The last thing you want in your house is a teenage human."
Ani stops by to protest the human captivity. She ends up buying Leo and The
Chick and takes them home as house servants, where they're groomed and given
minimal instructions for cleaning the kitchen and serving dinner.
Did I mention that everything since the start of the movie has taken place
in real time? Yep, that's right, a mere hour or two ago Leo was a space
jockey back at home. Not that you'd notice from how calmly he's taking all
of this. And while I'm quite sick of the "oh no, what's happened? why are
there monkeys everywhere?" sort of reaction which is typical of SF movie
characters who've apparently never seen an SF movie, or horror movie
characters who split up, I think Farscape's John Creighton is a far more
believable protagonist through his humanity and cynicism. PotA's Leo is just
along for the ride. I presume at least a few minutes pass before dinner is
served.
Before anyone eats, Attar orders everyone to say grace - this is the "Bow
your heads!" line from the trailer. It's barked at the dinner guests, not
the humans. Interesting bit of editing, that. Grace is said to the chimp (I
forget the name - I'll call him S) who fell from the stars and created the
apes, and who will one day return from the stars. Plot exposition!
The pre-dinner conversation revolves around human rights and the military's
desire to wipe out humans in defense of the apes. Why the humans are a
threat is unknown - the ones that are serving dinner look quite happy with
their lot; they are clean and have nice clothes. The ones in the jungle
don't bother the apes. Only in retrospect does the Nazi analogy occur; they
are so appalled that humans even exist that they want to eradicate them,
regardless of how harmless they are.
At the table are Ari, her father the senator, Thade, Attar and some other
riff-raff the's an older orang senator (great makeup) and his much younger
sultry chimp wife (Lisa Marie). At one point the wife remarks that she's
quite happy with the amount of interspecies mixing they have right now,
thank you very much. By the way, did I mention that Ani had the hots for
Leo?
Later that night, Leo picks the lock on his cage and breaks out, taking The
Chick and the other house humans with him. They head to Limbo's and break
out all the humans, including The Boy and The Chick's Father. Ani and her
father's gorilla friend catch them, but Leo promises he'll show her
something amazing if she helps them escape. The merry band then takes the
back way out of the city, which unfortunately passes through a military
ceremony where Attar shows up to berate his troops. The Chick's Father
sticks around to sacrifice himself so the rest can escape through a lava
tube back to the edge of the forest. Sniff.
On foot the band makes it back to the crash site where Leo retreives his
survival pack, including a gun and his PocketPC. Oh, and by the way, apes
are terrified of water since they can't swim. The PocketPC's wireless
connection tells him that his crew back on the ship (which looked a lot more
like a research station than a ship, but he calls a ship) has come looking
for him and are over yonder. The gang heads out. Then the gun comes in handy
when the Limbo and his thugs catch up. Unfortunately, Ani's gorilla
protector smashes the gun since he doesn't trust humans. They take Limbo
along for the journey, and we finally get a break from realtime while they
walk all the way to the edge of ape territory and into the forbidden zone,
following the PocketPC's homing signal.
It's forbidden because beyond that is the place where S came down from the
stars thousands of years ago - the religious site of Calima. Also, forbidden
for being a badlands-style desert area with no vegetation or shelter. But
not forbidden enough to have an encampment of gorilla warriors lead by
Attar, who somehow made it there ahead of the band. The band sneaks down,
swipes some horses, and escapes across a river. Attar heads back to the city
to tell Thade.
Thade stops in to visit his dying father, who's portrayed by Charleton
Heston. He reveals that the humans really did have civilization before the
apes, and gets the cameo-wink-wink lines: "They'll send more people after
him, I know they will." and "Damn them! Damn them to hell!" Somewhere along
the way we learn that Thade's family is descended from S. Thade rallies the
entire gorilla army and they start marching.
Leo's gang makes it to the source of his signal - the remains of a crashed
ship, weathered and caked with dirt. He heads in and finds a dirty sign
reading CALIMA; with a Kirk-esque gesture it turns out to be a CAution LIve
aniMAls sign. Uh-oh... you can see wonderboy's gears turning. He heads to a
control room which is still sealed with an impenetrable plexiglass pane. His
handprint activates the door. (The groan from the audience was mollifed by
his line "there's a nuclear power source, it should last forever.") This
sealed room is also caked with dust (!) but he's able to scrape some of it
off. He plops his PocketPC into its sync cradle (I'm not kidding about that
part) and fires up the monitor. The only bit of data he can retreive is the
distress call from the commander of his station saying they chased after him
and landed here, and a log entry by one of the crash survivors saying that
they'd settled here but that the apes were more intelligent than they
thought and that S was trying to kill all the humans.
Leo wanders outside and is a little miffed since his pickup isn't coming.
Then, out of the woodwork come a few hundred humans from the forest who
trekked into the forbidden zone since Leo fell from the stars to save them.
He tells them to leave; they don't. Thade's army shows up and camps. Morning
comes and Leo's still trying to get everyone to leave. Thade's army wakes up
and starts marching in. Leo has a sudden idea, and has the humans hide,
except for the few from his band, which go out to meet the army as bait on
horseback. Leo hangs back. At this point, The Boy steals a horse and rides
out to confront the army. When the first wave of the army charges (which
looks really nice, since the rushing gorillas on all fours are outpacing the
mounted cavalry) the bait turns to flee. The Boy's horse bucks and falls and
The Boy is trapped by the saddle. Leo runs out on foot to save The Boy -
into the path of the oncoming army, past the incoming bait. He makes it out
to where the bait was waiting, grabs The Boy puts The Boy on his horse, and
sends The Boy back, then runs after him on foot. (This, in case it wasn't
clear, was the only reason The Boy was in the movie.)
Meanwhile, those gorillas are really running fast towards him.
Leo runs back to the ship. The gorillas (which are running faster than
horses, mind you) don't catch up until he's back to the ship and hiding.
He presses a button on his PocketPC which discharges the last fuel cell on
the ship and fires the main rocket engine which impressively kicks up a lot
of dust and charging gorillas into the air. Oooh, aaaah, says everybody.
Once the gorillas have settled and had a chance to recover from being thrown
hundreds of feet and set on fire by the rocket engine, the humans rush in
and start to club them to death with sticks and stones. Thade decides to
play rough now and sends in his entire army. Every few shots someone
remembers that apes are really strong and throw humans tens of feet or crush
their limbs with ease. Mostly it's just clubbing with sticks and stones,
though. It's hard to tell if the humans are winning or if the apes are
really just not trying yet.
Just as Thade gets Leo pinned a bright light appears in the sky, and what
should happen but Pericles the chimp lands in his pod (which has VTOL
capabilities). The apes think it's the second coming of S and bow down, but
don't mind when Leo gets all chummy chummy with their deity. Well, except
Thade, who doesn't buy it at all, and decides to smash Leo after Leo sneaks
the gun out of Pericles' survival pack (!). They tumble into the ship's
structure with Pericles being bounced along.
After some fighting and shooting, Thade ends up locked alone in the bullet
proof control room with the gun. Ooops. Everyone goes outside to celebrate;
Attar's had a change of heart and the apes and humans can all be friends
now.
...
If - for some reason - you go see the movie after reading this, leave now.
It starts to get really bad from this point on.
...
Leo decides to fly Pericles' pod up and try to get home. Ani wants him to
stay. He gives her a sweet "thanks, but no thanks" kiss. Then he runs over
and gives The Chick a deep passionate smooch, despite the fact that she
hasn't actually done anything in the movie but stare vacantly and have a
heaving bosom.
Leo hops in the pod which VTOLs up into the blue sky with a twinkle, and is
then gone.
...
The previous bit was bad, but at least somewhat forgiveable. Now...
...
The pod finds the electromagnetic storm nearby and he dives back in. His
chronometer ticks back to 2029 and comes out right near Earth. He crash
lands in the mirror pool at the Mall in Washington DC. He calmly walks out
of the pod and up to pay his respects to Lincoln. Unfortunately, Lincoln has
gotten a little furry, and the inscription is in honor of Thade, who
liberated the apes.
Then the cops - in vintage 1990's patrol cars - and the press show up, all
pointing guns and cameras. They're all apes too.
Roll credits.
Joshua
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