Planet of the hype

>> Apes stage a comeback, Jet Li kicks ass, Steven Spielberg steps in for Stanley Kubrick and Jude Law gets artificial!

by MATTHEW HAYS

Okay, okay, so the Planet of the Apes remake is already everywhere, and I'm just adding to the pile of hype surrounding it by discussing it here. But for freaks who spent much of their childhood obsessed with the original five movies, and for those who still have a fetish for gorillas with big bananas (and I'm certain we're more than the estimated 10 per cent of the general population), Tim Burton's latest opus is the movie of the summer.

The art direction looks cool enough, though I must say the make-up itself, which everyone is gasping about, is no better than the original stuff from '68. Helena Bonham Carter, in particular, has a blow-dried coif that looks utterly ludicrous (apparently, Vidal Sasoon has opened a franchise on the planet). Burton has been accused of being more of an interior decorator than a filmmaker. Which begs the question: will the movie have the soul of the original? Well, at least Charlton Heston is along for the ride playing a dying ape. The actor, by the way, is not granting any more interviews about the film. "He said no way," his personal publicist told me. "He's talked enough about the apes. Never mind the new movie, people still want to talk to him about the '68 one!" Planet of the Apes opens July 27.

Spielberg, body double

Also high on the how-badly-can-this-potentially-fuck-up list is A.I., the latest feature from Steven Spielberg. The film is about robots learning to negotiate in a world after being endowed with a full range of human-like emotions. This was Stanley Kubrick's baby, but Spielberg has finished the film, which stars Haley Joel "I see dead people" Osment and the other-worldly-looking Jude Law. Yes, Spielberg handles special effects well, and not all of his films have been entirely Jurassic-sized empties (witness Close Encounters), but unlike Kubrick, Spielberg seems to grasp neither irony nor the deadening effects of technology on the human race. Opens June 29.

Believe it or not, not all summer fare has to be ridiculously empty-headed. Raoul Ruiz's latest, Time Regained, is an adaptation of the work of Marcel Proust which is getting stellar reviews everywhere. The unmatched Catherine Deneuve stars in this film, which opens at Cinéma du Parc June 22. Also at the Parc is Tsui Hark's Time & Tide, a Hong Kong hit that features pregnant lesbian cops, revenge subplots and hired assassins. Opens June 15.

Both John Carpenter and the planet Mars have been on a bit of a losing streak lately (think John Carpenter's Vampires and Mission to Mars and Red Planet respectively), but one hopes the two will cancel each other out and Ghosts of Mars might actually work. Featuring blaxploitation goddess Pam Grier, Ice Cube and Natasha Henstridge, the film has a Body Snatchers-like plot which involves miners whose bodies have been taken over by Martian ghosts. Opens August 24.

East meets West

In the Clueless vein comes Legally Blonde, in which poor little rich girl Reese Witherspoon has everything: president of her sorority, lives across the street from Aaron Spelling and dates the hottest frat boy on campus (Matthew Davis). But Davis's East-coast family isn't impressed by her West-coast roots, and soon enough, Witherspoon is forced to try to prove her intellectual mettle by getting accepted at Harvard, where he has already secured a spot. Opens July 13.

Mexican national cinema got a shot in the arm this past year from the much-praised Amores Perros, the brilliant dog-related trilogy. This summer the Cinémathèque québécoise pays tribute to Mexican director Jaime Humberto Hermosillo. Among the films screened in the retrospective will be Mary My Dearest (a film the director cowrote with Gabriel Garcia Marquez), Matinée and the hilarious and insightful Dona Herlinda and Her Son. The series runs until June 24.

It's a fitting match: action auteur Luc Besson and high-kicking Asian movie star Jet Li team up for Kiss of the Dragon, a mystery about a secret agent who's on a mission so clandestine even he doesn't fully understand what he's doing. Bridget Fonda plays a prostitute who finds herself in an unholy alliance with Li. July release.

Finally, a film that looks this stupifyingly silly might actually prove worth a few laughs. It certainly gets the prize for best trailer. Cats & Dogs recounts one of the greatest war stories of all time, between the species named in the title. The aforementioned trailer features Matrix references, catapult hijinks and Jeff Goldblum and Jon Lovitz voiceovers. My only hope is that the movie has good bits beyond what's captured in the trailer. Opens July 4.

Braindead summers have always proven dumping grounds for sequels. This season is no exception to that unwritten rule: Scary Movie 2, Jurassic Park 3, American Pie 2, Rush Hour 2 and Dr. Dolittle 2 will all be clearing-housed into cinemas in the next six weeks.

Stargazers, prick up your ears: I understand Oscar-winner Julia Roberts, who has been spotted about town this summer, has rented a chichi loft in Old Montreal to stay in. She's been visiting her main squeeze, the white-hot Benjamin Bratt, who's in town shooting Abandoned. This summer's shot-in-Montreal features include the Marlon Brando/Robert De Niro/Edward Norton flick The Score (July 13) and the Chris Klein/Jean Reno remake of Rollerball (August 17).