**
Burton's adaptation of "a novel" by Pierre Boulle, and his de facto reimagining of the 1968 film starring Charleton Heston. Here, Mark Wahlberg, an astronaut who trains monkeys to serve as canaries in deep space coal mines, follows one of his simian charges into an electromagnetic storm and is transported to a planet ruled by apes. With one exception, that planet is virtually the sole point of contact between this film and its progenitors. But the exception is important. Like the book, Burton's apes do ape-like things: they swing from trees and other handy outcroppings, sniff each other, display during sexual encounters, and so on. Indeed, Burton is so enamored with the behavior of his apes that nothing else seems to matter; he directs as if he is the chimpanzee counterpart of Miss Manners. Oh, and this time, the humans talk (making their subjugation much more difficult to understand). Indicative of the shallowness of the characters is that Estella Warren, with the power of speech, is much less interesting or affecting than Linda Harrison was in the original film, playing her counterpart. A would-be bomb that nevertheless has good special effects and a few funny lines.
Burton's adaptation of "a novel" by Pierre Boulle, and his de facto reimagining of the 1968 film starring Charleton Heston. Here, Mark Wahlberg, an astronaut who trains monkeys to serve as canaries in deep space coal mines, follows one of his simian charges into an electromagnetic storm and is transported to a planet ruled by apes. With one exception, that planet is virtually the sole point of contact between this film and its progenitors. But the exception is important. Like the book, Burton's apes do ape-like things: they swing from trees and other handy outcroppings, sniff each other, display during sexual encounters, and so on. Indeed, Burton is so enamored with the behavior of his apes that nothing else seems to matter; he directs as if he is the chimpanzee counterpart of Miss Manners. Oh, and this time, the humans talk (making their subjugation much more difficult to understand). Indicative of the shallowness of the characters is that Estella Warren, with the power of speech, is much less interesting or affecting than Linda Harrison was in the original film, playing her counterpart. A would-be bomb that nevertheless has good special effects and a few funny lines.
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