Tim Burton's "revised version" of the classic sci-fi flick has become the next victim in the overlyhyped, under achieving Summer Box Office. Granted the special effects are outstanding but above all that nothing much else sticks out and Mark Wahlberg gives another one of his patented intense, brooding performances.

Burton's version of Planet Of The Apes has Wahlberg playing Capt Leo Davidson who through some twist of fate is sent through a time distortion and crashes on a planet inhabited by intelligent apes.

The special make-up effects by Rick Baker gives the actors playing the apes a surreal human quality. The down-side to this is that it does away with the cheesiness of the original which in many ways was what made the original Planet Of The Apes so fun to watch. The Original was in most cases a great "B" movie while this new millenium version is just a lackluster summer movie destined to be sold on the "previously viewed" shelf by the dozen at Blockbuster. However, no matter how dull a Tim Burton movie gets, they are truly never that bad. Burton has a visually rich cinematic style and the images on screen compensate for the lack of interesting story.

Being a re-envisioning of Planet Of The Apes, there has to be a surprise ending and Burton deals out two surprise twists neither of which involve the Statue Of Liberty; the final surprise being so sequel-friendly that this is probably not the last time we see Marky Mark fighting a funky bunch of monkeys.

All in all Planet of the Apes turns out to be more of a disappointment rather than a classic, but in the blazing heat of this summer at least the theatre was air conditioned.