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Planet of the Apes

Planet of the Apes

List Price: $29.98
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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: HUH???
Review: Am I just stupid? I didn't think I was, I meen I get good grades and everything, but I don't get this movie. Well I did understand the whole movie, until the ... confusing ending. I would give this movie 2 1/2 stars but I don't have that option. This movie was good, fair acting, good action and story, and good makeup and effects. I would have given this movie 4 stars but unfortonately I stayed for the last minute of the movie instead of leaving. Film makers must think everyone is smart and gets everything about a movie these days cause I'm not. Final Fantasy and Swordfish also left me leaving the theater saying Huh??? Well bottom line is I didn't get the ending which ruined the movie for me....

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Just a movie
Review: To all of you "this movie is so bad critics". Most movies are no more than two hours wasted out of your life anyway, none of them are going to provide you with any life altering experience. This movie is just pure ecapist fun which is all it was meant to be. Sit back and enjoy.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: BATMAN OF THE APES!!!
Review: If you've seen one Tim Burton movie, you've seen them all, and despite all the talk about Burton's version of PLANET OF THE APES being a "reimagining," the movie suffers from a terrible lack of imagination!

It's BEETLEJUICE, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, AND BATMAN mixed together with the original PLANET OF THE APES in yet another dark, depressing Tim Burton movie. Mark Wahlberg is sensational as Astronaut Leo Davidson, as he manages to get out of one jam after another after he crash lands on the monkey planet. The rest of the cast is terrific, too, especially Helena Bonham Carter in the old Kim Hunter chimpanzee role, and Estella Warren as the latest version of the old Raquel Welch role from ONE MILLION YEARS, B.C. that was copied for Linda Harrison in the 1967 PLANET OF THE APES, but Warren looks better than either Welch or Harrison, is a much better actress, and can actually run!

But it's Wahlberg who carries the movie as a classic man of action, and only the silly TWILIGHT ZONE ending by Tim Burton prevents this movie from getting my 4 stars. The ending at of the original PLANET OF THE APES made you say, "WOW!!!" But the disappointing ending of Tim Burton's PLANET OF THE APES makes you say, "Wow, I want my money back!!!"

Chari Krishnan RESEARCHKING

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: it's a mirror.
Review: What I found most interesting on this film is the fact that the 'ape society' is very similar to humans today. The apes were ignorant, prejudiced, lacked empathy, and believed in 'survival of the fittest. Modern day society is the same, most people are ignorant, prejudiced, and lack empathy, many poeple also suffer from agism, racism, and sexism. I mean we ARE the apes! ignorant, stupid beings who fear waht they can't understand, calling themselves 'superior'. on the other hand Ari is the opposite, she believes in equality instead of superiority and I think she represents the way we all should think and act, and besides she was REALLY cute, for that only, this film deserves 5 stars.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not like the first one, but not kissing you sister either
Review: Pictures (visual appeal) A Noise (sound and music) B+ Talking (story and characters) C Faces (actors and performances) C

Let me start by saying that this is NOT like the original movie - AT ALL!

It does have the fist movie beat, hands down, when it comes to visual and sound effects. Needless to say the set design is far more advanced from the rounded Pueblo villages we saw in the originals. The forests are much darker and like rain forests rather than being like the tree line just past the cornfields. The make up will win an Oscar; just look at any of the previews and that will be apparent. And the really nice thing is that they don't all look the same. The costumes were well done too, especially the ape ones, and I really like the armor that they put on the general's horse late in the movie.

The performances ran the full range from excellent to disappointing. The two standouts were Tim Roth and Paul Giamatti. Giamatti as Limbo the slave trader was excellent, sleazy and despicable in every way, but with the quick trader's tongue (and sarcastic wit) he gave a little bit of humor to the film. Tim Roth as General Thade was evil and just downright mean, two traits that fit his character well. Helena Bonham Carter was the bleeding heart daughter of the local senator, and did a good job coming across as the human rights liberal opposed to the slavery and subjugation of humans in any way, shape or form. Michael Clarke Duncan and Kris Kristofferson were barely in the movie and probably would have been better with more screen time. Estella Warren was nothing but eye candy and I still wonder how she found hair coloring and makeup in the jungle. A disappointment was Mark Wahlberg. He did too good a job being the reluctant hero, and that made the confidence that the others in the movie had in him seemed unrealistic. A good hero, even one that doesn't want to be one, should still have some natural charisma and leadership; Captain Leo did not have either.

As for the story itself, let's just say it had a few problems. I get the impression that the script went through a lot of different changes, and no one was really in charge of making sure that everything made sense together. The major differences from the original: ape DOES kill ape, it is not on a decimated planet Earth, humans speak, just not a lot around the apes, and the apes don't all have guns. I think that by not having it on Earth, that you loose a good deal, you really don't have a frame of reference to watch the movie in, but the movie tries to refer to it a couple of times anyway. The social commentary of the first one is largely either gone or overlooked. What it does have the original lacked is a little political intrigue and maneuvering, although I think that this could have been developed a little bit better. I wasn't expecting a lot of depth in the story department when I went to go see this movie. In this department unfortunately I was not disappointed.

If the last twenty minutes of the movie were done differently, I probably would have given it at least a B+ overall, but they weren't, I will call it a C that is worth seeing for the visual effects.

SPOILER WARNING!!!! Do not read further if you don't want to know how the movie ends.

The end of this movie is really what made me drop my rating of it significantly. And I am not talking about the end after the conclusion of the big battle; I am talking about he big battle itself. As far as I am concerned, the five minutes before the credits should have just been deleted, they really didn't shock the way I think they were intended to and it seemed kind of silly. Sending him back to a planet Earth that was just like today's society but ruled by apes was really pointless. I won't say anymore about that but I do have a few more comments about the final battle and it's aftermath. First of all, there were not twists and turns, there was no braveheart inspiring the troops, and some of what happened was just preposterous. When Leo discharges the nuclear power cells of the Oberon (the space station he was on in the beginning of the movie) to make a giant blast as the first wave of apes attacks and then they get up to fight is just silly. I know they are supposed to be tough, but come on! The whole thing with Peracles the chimp from the beginning of the movie returning to the homing beacon of the crashed Oberon is a little far fetched, especially since he would have had to go through a space storm to get there. It was pretty obvious that they were going to link the genetically enhanced chimps from the beginning of the movie to justify where the 'smart apes' came from, and was anticlimactic.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: More entertaining than a certain dinosaur-sequel...
Review: This is definitely the better movie to see this summer than a certain dinosaur sequel. Jurassic Park 3 was just plain awful, the only people who ended up enjoying it were ten year old little boys. Here is a movie that doesn't insult your intelligence, although the ending is odd and out-of-place it does close the movie well and opens up a chance for a sequel. Although the movie theatre I watched it in degraded the film's experience, I found it quite entertaining. It has a good percussion based score by Danny Elfman, good dark cinematography and good acting. I do not recommend this movie to a fan of the original Planet of the Apes because they'd probably complain that this one doesn't comment on society as much as the original. This one isn't a satire but more in-line with the original novel. I do agree with Roger Ebert that this is definitely a better piece of entertainment than Jurassic Park 3 and I will buy it when it comes out on DVD.

Note(s): I almost got teary-eyed when I thought the little monkey (Pericules) was going to die. Aww how sad.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Don't listen to the bad hype
Review: It seems whenever someone does a remake and it isn't exactly the same everyone hates it. Well what is the point in that. I have to say that I found that this movie convinced me that it is possible for other apes to dominate humans. I think that we have to remember that the original movie didn't exactly follow the book, and this newer version is definately more modern and much smarter for that matter.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Planet of the (Stupid) Apes
Review: I just went to see Planet of the Apes. If you haven't already, don't. This makes Battlefield Earth look good. The apes do nothing but scream and make Herculean leaps through the air. Superman might have trouble with them. This chimp (one of the poor fellas us humans cage up and use as test subjects for the space projects) at the beginning makes an appearance toward the end, making a perfect four point landing with his space pod to save the day in the midst of the raging battle between the raggedy humans and their sticks and the gargantuan apes who can pick up the humans and snap them in half. General Thade (ape) has it in for the hero from the beginning for reasons the film doesn't explain other than he hates humans. There is an implied jealousy thing over the hero between the female chimp and the downright sexy (and quite busty through her torn up outfit - has that blonde Rachel Welch from 1M BC thing going) female that gets captured with our hero. Chris Christopherson makes a brief appearance as a self sacrificing father of the sexy blonde. Charleton Heston makes his brief appearance, though you couldn't tell if his voice wasn't so distinct. And there is the gratitutious kid who won't follow directions because he knows better and almost blows the whole plan the hero has for saving the human race (I think the horse he was on had a minor stroke and fell down, trapping the kid's leg under it until the hero reached him in the nick of time to get the horse to come out of the coma and stand up).

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good Entertainment
Review: While the acting shouldn't win any Academy Awards, the formulaic plot is razor thin, and the over all tenor was aggressive and violent, the film was entertaining, if trite. The costumes and makeup were excellent. I recommend it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Little Good And A Lot Bad!!
Review: I found the movie very fun to watch at the beginning; but as time progressed I found it more and more predictable; until it was sort of getting boring; and then the end seems to have been sacrificed along with all that I was happy about in the movie, just for the sake of a stupid confusing, disappointing twist! Want some advice on this movie?!...If someone gives a copy of this to you watch it once before you throw it away.


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