tim burton has now completed his evolution from the brilliant director of macabre stories about outcast individuals yearning for acceptance , and into a studio monkey whose name is used as part of multi-tiered marketing materials for crap movies . 
and here he hits rock bottom , with planet of the apes . 
i didn't expect much from this latest " interpretation " of pierre boulle's classic novel planet of the apes . 
i mean , how could you top the force and impact of the original film , intelligently co-scripted by rod serling ( of twilight zone fame ) combined with the overbearing chuck heston growling and yelling at those " damn dirty apes , " in one of his best roles of his career ? 
sadly , i sat down to watch burton's version of planet of the apes and within the first 20 minutes , i was checking my watch and my girlfriend ( a big fan of the original film ) started to nod off . 
this time around , the story plays out like a cross between enemy mine , braveheart , and project x . marky mark wahlberg , who was enjoyable in boogie nights and the corrupter , plays leo davidson , a hot shot u . s . air force pilot . 
leo and his crew are in search of some mysterious magnetic storms ( no real explanation given in the film ) and leo sends one of his genetically altered " smart " chimps into the storms to collect data . 
leo and his crew lose communication with the chimp , leo hops in another ship to find the monkey , and then he's thrown through some type of time-space wormhole which crashes lands on the twentieth century fox studio backlot , all mocked up to look like the amazon jungle . 
leo ends up getting captured by a group of talking apes and is sold to a slave trader named limbo ( paul giamatti ) who in turn sells leo to a chimpanzee named ari ( helena bonham carter ) . 
the kind ari then helps leo and his fellow humans escape to the mountains to find leo's ship . 
along the way , monkeys played by tim roth ( overacting his role of a vicious general named thade ) and michael clarke duncan ( who further enhances his career by playing another heavy in a bad action movie ) strive out to hunt down leo and his band of human savages , just like battlefield earth ! 
in the end , it all culminates into another braveheart rip-off human versus ape battle scene . 
while rick baker's makeup work is amazing , the script is a pathetic hodgepodge ( courtesy of three writers ) , the acting is horrible , and the " surprise " ending feels like a swing from a ball-peen hammer into the temple . 
wahlberg does not have the physical or mental presence of a chuck heston to carry the film or any of its action sequences . 
this remake , or re-interpretation , as tim burton has proclaimed it , is an insult to the intelligence and wit of the original film . 
the ethical arguments about the equality of species , fascism , and military buildup have been replaced by tremendous amounts of ridiculous dialogue , an unimaginative narrative structure , and a romance between a monkey and a human . 
even chuck heston's anti-gun tirade ( in the de rigeur cameo ) seems shallow and jokey . 
but the main element missing from this tim burton film is tim burton . 
even though his name is plastered across every billboard in america , john badham could have directed this film . 
even joel schumacher could have directed this film . 
he probably should have . 
burton's predominant themes of rejection , isolation , and the search for one's place in the universe , as seen in ed wood , edward scissorshands , and pee-wee's big adventure , are completely absent in this planet . 
i suppose that's what happen when a great director gets sucked through a wormhole . 
