Director: Tim Burton
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Clarke Duncan
Have I Seen It Before: Yes. For the life of me, I can’t remember if I saw it in theaters, but I’m almost certain I would have. I do remember that the DVD had a diagram that tried to make sense out of the time warp-y qualities of the plot… And you can imagine how helpful it might have been.
Did I Like It: I’ve always thought of the film as an extremely average exercise, punctuated by an unnervingly confusing ending.
Twenty-plus years later, and nothing has really changed. If there’s a movie where it was more clear that Burton showed up to call “action!” and “cut!” for the money alone, then it would probably be <Batman (1989)>. That’s a lie. At least Batman had some clowns in it and a sense of art and the artistic.
I can’t help but think of what this film could have been during the many years it spent languishing in development hell. For a minute, there was a version in the 90s starring Schwarzenegger and directed by Cameron. If that doesn’t make you feel like you were robbed, then I really don’t know what to do with you.
It’s not as if there is nothing of value in the movie. It sports one of the last great (yes, I did say that) Danny Elfman scores. Also, while the apes makeup is a quantum leap forward from the days of Roddy McDowall*, the individual ape performances—especially from Roth, Bonham Carter, and Paul Giamatti—allow for a lot more ape-like behavior out of the characters than before.
If only they had inhabited a story worth watching, or for that mater, worth understanding. The deck was stacked against the film as it felt the need to match the awe-inspiring quality of <the original’s> conclusion. I can’t imagine that this was what anyone—filmmaker or viewer alike—wanted. Even now, years later, I try to make sense of just what is happening in this film’s final minutes. There are a few seconds where I almost get there, and then it slips away. And if the film which preceded it, I might feel the need to keep trying to work it ll out.
*As I wrap up my reviews of the Apes films, I realize I may be afforded relatively few opportunities to refer back to Roddy MacDowall, which always lends itself to this strangely foundational memory. My parents insisted McDowall was the voice of C-3PO in the Star Wars films. I was correct in my insistence that it was in fact Anthony Daniels who played the robot. I even showed them the end credits of one of the movies on VHS. They still insist that Roddy McDowall was in Star Wars, and by that logic was still appearing in Star Wars films several decades after his death.