The central human character is USAF Captain Leo Davidson (Wahlberg), who finds himself running for his life from a patrol of armour-wearing apes on horseback, led by the huge silverback gorilla Attar, played by Green Mile star Michael Clarke Duncan. Attar reports to the tyrannical General Thade (Tim Roth, exuding menace from behind chimpanzee make-up). “He’s definitely the villain of the piece,” says Burton. “He represents a certain point of view in ape culture, especially the aggression of the species. As we’ve seen in several of his films, Tim can be terrifying. Thade is actually a chimp - the primate that Rick [Baker] says is the most volatile.”
But not all the apes are bad. Indeed, the best of the them is the chimp whom Thade secretly loves: Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), who would be an animal-rights activist if she was human, but who, in the context of Planet of the Apes, is a human-rights campaigner. She quickly forms a bond with the human newcomer, as does Daena, a strong-willed human female played by supermodel Estella Warren. Rounding out the story’s central characters are an orangutan slave-trader called Limbo (Paul Giamatti), plus the fathers of the two lead females: David Warner as Senator Sandar, Ari’s father; and Kris Kristofferson as Karubi, father to Daena. There’s even an ape cameo for Charlton Heston.
Snow business: left to right, Krull (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), Leo (Mark Wahlberg), Gunnar (Evan Dexter), Limbo (Paul Giamatti) and Birn (Luke Eberl) trek into ape territory.
|
The complexities of the new planet’s culture are experienced by Captain Davidson, who organises the humans into resistance, and finally leads them in an assault on the Sacred Temple in the heart of the Forbidden Zone which holds the secret of the Planet of the Apes. It’s the kind of role which might have been written for Wahlberg, whose dominant onscreen characteristic is a ferocious determination to the point of obstinacy. A bit like Charlton Heston, in fact.
“What I like about Mark is he’s got a real gravity to him,” says Burton. “He’s an actor of strength and clarity. If you want the audience to see things through the eyes of your lead character, you want to feel like here’s a human being that you can relate to - who sees the weirdness, the intensity of it all and is dealing with it.”
|
“Tim has a very clear idea of his own universe, but he never gives you instructions on how to work it”
|
For the director, however, the one crucial element in creating the unique universe of the Planet of the Apes is that the film should have its own, unique world, not be a loving recreation of the world of the 1968 movie. But, he says, “the original had a life of its own, and we’re trying to be respectful of it…”
As well he might, since his film and the original share a producer, in the shape of veteran Richard D Zanuck, who has filled the intervening years with such cinematic trifles as Jaws, The Sting and Cocoon. Zanuck had not been involved in the new version prior to the hiring of Burton to direct the movie. But he couldn’t wait to get involved when Burton came on board.
“He was just what we needed to reinvent the material - an iconoclastic, auteuristic visionary,” he says. “When you say Planet of the Apes and Tim Burton in the same breath, that idea is instantly explosive, like lightning on the screen.”
