The usually-reliable Mark Wahlberg, since his time in the excellent
Boogie Nights,
just seems to sleepwalk through this picture as genetic monkey
expert-cum-astronaut Captain Leo Davidson, scowling as he goes and telling
gorgeous captive Daena (model Estella Warren) that he wants to return
to the US Air Force when she asks him which tribe he comes from.
Of the primate cast, Tim Roth is very watchable as the chief baddie
and back-stabbing General Thade, while Helena Bonham Carter as
human-rights campaigner Ari - thus turning elements of our life on their head -
gets a fair bit of dialogue but is still rather limp in the acting stakes.
Roth's make-up is first rate while Helena's makes her seem less hairy than usual
and looking more like Michael Jackson after yet more surgery. The costumes
on some of those further down the class ladder aren't half as realistic though.
There's always time for totty.
So, why re-make Planet of the Apes at all, given that it's just a
bog-standard road movie as Wahlberg and co. try to get from A to B when
attempting to escape? Because they can.
Give a project a big-name director,
a big budget and a big-name cast, including two of the original line-up in
cameo roles (Linda Harrison as "Woman in cart" and Charlton Heston
as Zaius, Thade's father) and you'll take the horse to water AND make them
drink, but it's like hoping for fresh, cold spring water and getting dull,
luke-warm of the tap variety in return. You'll make do with it for a time but
won't go back to it and will always choose something better in its place
next time round.
It's so predictable, pointless and, most of all, boring.
Ape attack.
Like the original films this too was shot at a cinematic ratio of 2.35:1
and is presented in the same way here. It looks nothing short of excellent.
It's not a film that revels in being exceedingly colourful, often going for
a dark and medieval look in the jungle. No complaints whatsoever with this
anamorphic widescreen picture.
Similarly, the sound is fine too. However, the speakers aren't tested all the
time - though Wahlberg's crash-landing is well worth a run on anyone's system -
and the atmosphere is created out of Danny Elfman's rather predictable
score. Since most of the extras are on disc 2, this leaves plenty of room on the
first one for both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 soundtracks. I listened to
the latter.
Mr. Orange - back from the dead.
The extras are as follows:
Enhanced viewing mode: On the first disc, these are
picture-in-picture vingettes on various filmmaking topics presented in
conjunction with the film.
The Making of The Apes: Six featurettes plus screentests, totalling
almost two hours of footage, containing plenty of behind-the-scenes material,
different types of screentests, recording the score and on-location B-roll
footage.
Multi-angle scene studies: Four scenes from the film (Limbo's
Quadrangle, Sandar's House, Escape from Ape City, In the Forest) shown as B-roll
footage from the point of view of the film-makers. Between these four, there
are eight separate multi-angle moments which show three screens of action
and can be viewed singularly or all at once. Production Art, the script and
the scene as it appears in the film can also be viewed.
Deleted scenes (5 mins): Five scenes, at around a minute apiece,
all in non-anamorphic 2.35:1 and time-coded. The quality isn't that hot, but
I'm surprised there isn't more to them.
HBO Special: A 27-minute "making of" piece shown on TV.
Music Video: Paul Oakenfold's "Rule the Planet" remix.
Trailers and TV Spots: Two 1.85:1 theatrical trailers for the film
(60 seconds and 2½ minutes, six TV spots and promo trailers for the
original "Apes" collection, Moulin Rouge and Dr Dolittle 2.
Posters and Press Kit material
Cast and Crew profiles
Music Promo: A 30-second advert for the soundtrack album.
Concept Art Gallery: More pictures than you can shake a stick at taking
in major scenes and the props as well as storyboards.
DVD-ROM features: Put it in your PC's DVD-ROM drive for features
such as a screenplay-to-film comparison and a look at Leo's log book.
2 Audio Commentaries: One from director Tim Burton and
one from composer Danny Elfman, both of them on disc one, obviously.
The film has a great 36 chapters to the 2hr running time and subtitles
come in 14 flavours: English for the hearing-impaired, Croatian, Czech, Danish,
Dutch, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese,
Swedish, Turkish.
The menus are mostly animated with sound and have great screenwipes inbetween
that are in keeping with the theme of the film.
Full marks to Fox for keeping the price low on this. Such a boxset would
normally be £24.99 if not a bit higher for the amount of supplemental
material. Perhaps this marks a new trend?
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
