I loved the original Planet of the Apes. Heck, I grew up alongside that franchise. It was, along with Star Trek, my introduction to science fiction. Unlike a lot of things from my youth (like Starlost and Space: 1999), Planet of the Apes continued to be enjoyable and poignant. Sure, the apes make-up became laughable a couple of decades after the movies release, but there was something much more to Planet of the Apes than make-up and special effects.

Not so with the remake.

Now, I love Tim Burton. I think he is a masterful director. He has made great, subversive comedies, believable, exciting super-hero movies and gripping, frightening gothic tales, however, in my mind he has stumbled.

I have to tell you, there was very little I enjoyed about the new Planet of the Apes other than the special effects and the ape's acting (Tim Roth especially, as he seemed to disappear into that role). The humans, who weren't acting under a ton of make-up and prosthetics--my God, what was up with that? Mark Wahlberg was Mark Wahlberg, giving us the same character we saw in the Big Hit, the Corrupter, Three Kings and the Perfect Storm, just in a different situation and genre. Estella Warren did what I suppose she was paid to do, fill out a bikini-like costume and look sexy (though, quite honestly, not very hot for what she's got--and please excuse that extremely sexist remark). I expected more from Kris Kristofferson, having been so dazzled by him recently in Blade 2. It's not that the apes just got the better actors, but maybe I expected less from them (buried under their faces, as it were) and got more.

It now seems fitting, looking back on the movie as a whole, that the apes get all the great lines from the original movie. Even Charlton Heston, in an unbilled appearance, gets to offer up his classic lines again, but this time in reverse, as it were. Honestly, I don't think the human cast was up to giving any of those lines the weight and measure they deserve.

As for the story, it had holes I could fly the Oberon through. Because I don't like to spoil anything, I'm not going to mention all of them here, but a couple that stick in my head are the relinquishing of inculcated belief systems on evidence that could be construed in so many other ways, and actions taken only because they look good on film but have no application in reality (what, exactly, was that flare for?). The ending itself needs a huge explanation and the fragmentary one offered with the DVD material wasn't very believable or cogent.

It seems that this Planet of the Apes is more Politically Correct than imaginative. It presents more navel-gazing than excitement. If one is to take one's subject so seriously, do it the justice of thinking it through in a logical and realistic manner.

I don't want to say much more because, frankly, the movie doesn't deserve this much space. The one good thing that came out of this was a desire to rent the original Planet of the Apes. It might be cornball in some spots, but even with crappy effects, it is a much more enjoyable movie than this remake. I really hope Tim Burton finds his stride with his next movie. He really blundered on this one.