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"Never
send a monkey to do a man's job"
and
with that Captain Leo Davidson (Wahlberg) ignores his
space ship commander and launches himself on a rescue
mission to chase after his prize chimp, sent out to probe
an on -coming deep space electrical storm.
Set
in 2029, ( the year I collect my pension!!) we are aboard
the 'Oberon' the latest space ship from the US Navy.
Davidson's job onboard was to train lab chimps to fly
space ships where it was too dangerous to send humans!! so
we see lots of fur covered hands pushing control knobs and
throttle boosters.
As
luck would have it, our trained chimp looses contact with
the mother ship, an attempt by Davidson to mount a rescue
bid in his own mini 'Pod' resulted in near disaster.
Damaged during his flight thru the electrical storm,
forced him to crash land on "The Planet of the
Apes"!! Carving a nice swath thru the tropical forest
(which in itself was interesting as the rest of the planet
appeared desert!!) he comes to a rest in a pond and
escapes the module to find himself surrounded by fleeing
human inhabitants, dressed in Tarzan style loin cloths.
They
were being chased mercilessly by the dominant Apes and
held captive in makeshift cages. The style is very similar
to Jurassic park with human prey replacing dinosaurs.
Davidson along with 'Nova' (Lisa Marie Smith) and her
fellow human beings were taken to Ape HQ to be sold for
slavery in the Ape kingdom.
The
Ape business man, who had a mind like Arthur Daley bought
and sold the slaves and provided the much needed bit of
humour in the film. At this stage in time you have got to
remember that the Ape was superior in strength and
intelligence to the human being, whom they castigated.
"In the human culture, everything is below the
waist" was a line that was much laughed at during the
equivalent of an ape Roman banquet!.
Davidson's
arrival at Ape HQ did attract the attentions of one female
Ape.. Ari (Helena Bonham Carter) She proved to be the
saviour of the good captain and some of his other human
captives. Wearing her attractive designer coat she lead
them out of the Ape city back to his sunken space ship
where he rescues from the deep his 'locater beacon'
complete with Duracell batteries.
Their
escape lead to frantic efforts to recapture them along
with the idealistic 'Ari' who was seen as a traitor to the
Ape kingdom.. typical female!! Equipped with his rescue
beacon and armed with the latest stun gun he sets about
homing in on the signal from his rescue ship. Needless to
say there was lots of action packed adventure along the
way. The affections of 'Ari' and 'Nova' were ignored by
Davidson.... he must have queer leanings, or else the true
Marky Mark surfaced!! his fixation was to get home to his
mother space ship.
His
efforts to home in on the beacon, proved disappointing, as
they did indeed home in on a signal but it proved to be
coming from the crashed mother ship... Isn't life cruel??
Needless to say the legions of Apes were following hot on
their heels, marching and on horse back!! towards their
place of refuge. They were trapped. With the entire human
race assembled behind this super hero as they thought,
Wahlberg had to do some quick thinking....
General
Thade ordered his first wave to attack, so we had lots of
extras charging forward with invisible biscuit boxes
between their knees, all ape like to batter the humans...
After all this was going to be the 'mother of all battles'
that would make the Gulf war look like a chimps tee
party..
So I
wont go any further and spoil the ending, which was
probably the most interesting part of the film. Excellent
performances put in by Wahlberg and Helena Carter who
provided much needed Ape compassion towards the humans.
Visual effects were very good and if this film doesn't get
an Oscar for the make up, well, there is no justice.
Its
been a long time since I saw a film with out any
sex/nudity or romance in it, but it still carried it off.
A few un-answered questions relating to continuity but
that's splitting hairs. Don't judge the previous versions
on this film.
Official
website at http://www.planetoftheapes.com
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