chimpanzees abroad a spacefaring vessel. When   Davidson's personally trained chimpanzee is lost in space, he sets out after him and crash-lands on a lush planet. He falls right in the path of rogue humans who are being chased and rounded up by apes, led by the silverback Attar (Michael Clarke Duncan).

Humans, who are in the majority on the planet, are slaves and pets of the ruling species: angry apes. The apes have evolved a society not unlike our own: there's a class structure and the powerful dominate the weak. There's

The characters are richly drawn and complex. The villainous leader of the army, Thade (Tim Roth), brings out the archetypal essence of the ape's aggressive nature. Thade has only one weakness: his feelings for Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), the privileged daughter of a senator who is a human rights activist. Ari helps Davidson and a group of humans, led by Karubie (Kris Kristofferson) and his daughter Limbo (Estella Warren) escape slavery. It's Limbo who notices the attraction between Ari and Davidson. Much has been written about whether or not Ari and

Unequivocally, the best plotted, acted, designed, and directed summer movie of 2001! From the opening shot, the movie careens with heightened aggression and sudden, raging violence. Nothing about the movie is typical and predictable. The screenwriters, William Broyes, Jr. and Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal (said to have rewritten most of it  on set), should be singled out for their cleverness and attention to detail. On Earth, human intelligence arose directly from chimpanzee intelligence; on the planet envisioned here, we find out exactly what happened to upset the evolutionary blueprint. Ape