In Tim Burton's recent version of Planet of the Apes , human-hating chimpanzee General Thade disrupts a simian dinner party by grabbing a human, forcing open his mouth and growling down his throat "is there a soul in there?" This could have been the heart of the film: a dramatic clash of species in the context of an exploration of humanity's relationship to power and nature, intelligence and spirit. Could have been. Regrettably, Thade's question is rhetorical, only pretense. Here Thade is a perfect, if unintended, stand in for the filmmakers: not truly interested in soul searching, just trying to make a spectacle.

In 1968 Planet of the Apes , produced by Arthur P. Jacobs and based on a novel by Pierre Boulle, delighted critics and audiences alike as both an imaginative science fiction adventure and a sober political commentary. The struggles of the 60s c the fight for racial justice, domestic battles about the Vietnam War, cynicism toward the political and religious establishment — underscored almost every scene, all without losing the excitement, humor and visual splendor that people love in Hollywood epics. "The most fun you could have while thinking about a movie," is how one fan described it to me.

Taking an alternate reality in which human political faults were safely projected onto imaginary apes, spoofed and critiqued, the Apes sequels (Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Escape from the..., Conquest of the..., Battle for the... ) extended and sharpened the racial-political allegory by addressing issues like urban riots and the Black Power movement with varying degrees of subtlety and sympathy. While ostensibly about apes, the real focus was always the survival possibilities of a racially fractured United States. (Franklin Schaffner, the director of the first film, argued that he was trying to make a political film and a social satire more than a science fiction story, and Paul Dehn and J. Lee Thompson, the writer and director of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes acknowledged that the Watts riots provided the inspiration for the slave revolt led by the film's hero).

The studio spin doctors insist on calling this a "re-imagining," not a remake. When Burton does imagine territory beyond the original his film truly comes alive: striking production design and costumes; delightfully bizarre glimpses of ape life (an ape removing his toupee and dentures; an "interracial" orangutan-chimpanzee mating dance; the ape-like movement and mannerisms); excellent performances by Cary Tagawa (Krull), Paul Giamatti (Limbo) and Tim Roth's compelling, if one-note, Thade; and some astonishing make up by Rick Baker and his associates. (If nothing else they deserve an Oscar for Thade and for the marvelous Orangutan senator at the dinner party.) There's enough good stuff in the film that it deserved to be better.

Yet for all this, even without comparison to the original, the movie seems surprisingly lifeless, marred by a weak plot, thematic vacuousness and underdeveloped characters. Had the film-makers risked going further in new directions, the film might have felt like a distinct vision — as opposed to just a distinct look — and succeeded or failed strictly on its own terms. But no one here seems up to the task. In its attempts to "ape" several elements of the first Planet of the Apes, this is ultimately just a remake. And a disappointing one at that.

Both films, for instance, depict apes lording it over humans. But Burton's film invokes slavery without confronting it. Unlike in the first Planet, the human slaves here can talk. Giving them the power of speech opened up a range of story options, yet they have created no culture, no politics, no religion. Why are there no Nat Turners or Underground Railroads? Why no redemption songs? Even the Hebrew slaves in the Bible had prophecies of a deliverer. Why allow the film's humans the power to talk, and give them nothing to say? The only advantage these humans have over the original is better hair.

Schaffner used the animal oppression of humans, as well as the discrimination amongst ape groups (light apes in charge, dark apes on the bottom of social ladder) as allegory to argue that we "civilized" humans were not so civilized after all. Apes and humans in the original series feared and hated each other precisely because, as evolutionary "cousins," each recognized their own brutality in "the other." Their hostility and violence was directly proportional to their need to suppress that recognition. In this year's film, the apes and humans see nothing of themselves in each other. They are enemies only because the story needs a conflict. The struggles are flashy but not organic — and thus not emotionally engaging or even frightening.

Both films feature a sympathetic female chimpanzee who puts herself at real risk to help the male human astronaut. Again, there was some promise for going beyond the earlier movie. The screenplay called for a growing attraction between the human protagonist Leo (Mark Wahlberg) and the chimpanzee human rights activist Ari (Helena Bonham Carter). While not consummated, their affection required them to ask if their shared capacity for consciousness outweighed their physical differences. Rumors abound as to why this subplot was watered down but regardless of the reason, the concept was ruined by the execution. Surely over Rick Baker's objection, Ari's makeup was deliberately designed to make her look more attractive by human standards: mascara, lipstick and a ridiculous Italian designer wig make her look a good deal more like Jennifer Anniston than a chimpanzee. Ironically, while Ari is the most anti-racist character in the movie, her make-up unintentionally delivers a racist message: trust those who look most like you.

The earlier film established a cross-species empathy between Charlton Heston's character Taylor and chimpanzee Zira, despite their physical difference. When the grateful Heston asks to kiss her goodbye near the film's ending, Zira exclaims, "all right, but you're so damned ugly!" Getting past the physical difference, rather than denying it, was the characters' accomplishment. The characters never pretended that they were not physically "ugly" to each other, but the Apes series interrogated that aversion to difference and used a civil rights-era model to emphasize respect, affection and alliance across species — and, by implication, racial — lines

The two Planets also differ greatly in their view of "heroism." The first film destabilized white male supremacy by stripping the usually triumphant Charlton Heston of all the benefits of his status — speech, freedom, clothing, weapons — and putting him at the mercy of "lower" animals. In the midst of decolonization, the original Planet used Third World animals to question the ascendance of Western "man." Here Wahlberg is the can-do US Air Force captain, never out of control for too long, winning instant allies and followers. Unlike the ambiguity-ridden Heston of that messy 1968 gestalt, Wahlberg is the unquestioned white male savior in a film much more comfortable with American power. Even the first film's implicit critique of nuclear weapons is transmogrified into a celebration of our nuclear capacity.

This summer's movie, then, is a product of its time — albeit unwittingly — just as surely as the first one was deliberately. The original Planet of the Apes grew out of a time of wrenching conflict that, in the midst of wars abroad and revolutions at home, demanded soul searching. Today, soul searching has been replaced by soulless sloganeering: "Compassionate Conservatism" (or was that "Kinder, Gentler, America?") rules unquestioned.

The original Planet of the Apes films were made with the conviction that a successful movie can both excite the imagination and challenge the conscience. They stood out as an accessible way to explore the roots and results of prejudice with a pop audience. The new film represents a culture that has not only failed to find the answers to its racial problems, it no longer dares to ask the questions.

The tale of two Planets is a cautionary tale about remakes: ironically, Planet of the Apes actually grew out of an aversion to remaking movies. Arthur P. Jacobs had thought about remaking King Kong but decided that one should leave the classics alone. He forced himself to put his creative energy into something new and as a result developed the Apes series. Today's obsession with safe remakes stifles risky innovations.

Of course, there is a place for new versions of old stories. At our best we return to existing mythologies and use them to re-examine new or unresolved questions. At our worst we return to them because we have no new ideas. Much like Dances with Wolves and Unforgiven used the Western genre to explore persistent issues about race, reconciliation and violence, how exciting could it have been if Burton and company had honored the roots of the original Planet of the Apes mythology while adapting it to contemporary concerns? Instead, they did neither. "Is there a soul in there?" Unfortunately, this time the answer is "no."