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Planet of the Apes
Director: Tim Burton (2001)
Distributor: 20th Century Fox. Certificate: 12
 Spoiler notice: There are two significant twists in the film. The first will become apparent if you read on. |
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If you have missed the hype about Tim Burton's 'revisioning' of Planet of the Apes this summer, you have probably been living on a different one yourself! A big-budget blockbuster backed by a high-profile marketing campaign, it seemed for a while as though apes were staring back at us from every other bus-shelter advertising hoarding in the country. But just in case . . .
Orbiting earth in the year 2029 is a space station on which genetically modified apes are trained to undertake dangerous missions. When one of the apes, Pericles, becomes lost in an electrical storm his trainer, astronaut Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) disobeys orders and sets out to find him. Leo is also caught in the storm and transported through a wormhole to a distant planet in the future, on which he crash lands. What Leo discovers is a world ruled by apes. He is soon captured by an orangutan slave trader called Limbo (Paul Giamatti) and sold to Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), an ape activist campaigning for the rights of humans. Aided by Ari, Leo escapes with a small band of humans from the ape city and they head for a destination where Leo believes a rescue mission from his space station has already landed.
Enraged by the escape, General Thade (Tim Roth) and his right-hand ape Attar (Michael Clarke Duncan) take an ape force off in pursuit of the humans, seeing it as an opportunity to embark on a campaign to rid the planet of humans once and for all. When Leo and the humans arrive at their destination ~ a sacred site for the apes from where they believe the first ape, Semos, originated ~ what they discover is the centuries-old wreckage of the space station and realisation dawns that through a twist of time the apes' origin was not what they thought.
In the midst of the resulting battle between the apes and the humans a surprising event occurs, providing Leo with a way off the planet and apes and humans with a chance to make a new start together as equals.
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The storyline is a little weak and Mark Wahlberg's 'Leo' somewhat two-dimensional, but the ape make-up and mannerisms are mind-blowing. To cap it all, the final twist that comes right at the end of the film is worth your cinema ticket, even though working it out is a headache generator! |
THROUGH THE LENS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH
All sorts of issues bubble up through the film. There is a strong racism theme present, evident in the first words spoken to Leo by Attar: "Take your hands off me, you damn dirty human". General Thade has tendencies towards genocide that make ethnic-cleansing sound mild. Also running through the film is a clear religious thread. The apes revere and pray to Semos, the original ape from whom they sprang and in whose image they are created. In each of the issues, the film holds up a mirror to our human condition ~ how we treat each other and how we live together in our diversity as we try to make sense of our place in the universe.
Planet of the Apes invites a whole range of questions that are worth pondering in the light of faith. Here are just two of them.
The apes' treatment of humans can be seen as a picture of the awful consequences of ill-treating any group of people. History is littered with examples right up to and including our present day. As you look around at our world, our nation, and our society, who do you see as the discriminated against? Who is responsible? Have a look at John 4.1-30, Luke 10.25-37 and Luke 17.11-19, examples of Jesus' approach to the outcasts and despised of society.
The film eventually shows the religion of the apes to be a distortion of the truth for the benefit of those in positions of power. The Bible gives us a very different picture of the nature of true religion (e.g. Micah 6.8, James 1.27). Jesus himself condemns people who put on a show of being religious but who are really working the system for themselves (e.g. Matthew 23). Can you see any similar practices in the Church today? What do you see as the danger signs that we need to be aware of? Why do you think evil actions have sometimes happened in the name of Christianity?
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