Rating: 
Summary: Stupid Gimmick--Poor Commentary
Review: I have enjoyed several of Tim Burton's previous films (especially his SLEEPY HOLLOW "detective" movie), and I have been a fan of the original PLANET OF THE APES film since it was first released. This "remake" (which does not follow either the original didactic book or the original movie) seems to have been made solely in order to display Burton's gimmicky idea of transposing the positions of apes and human beings at the end when the hero (Mark Wahlberg) returns to his own time. This seems to have been done merely to surprise and shock the hero (and the viewer), but it makes absolutely no sense, either logically or in terms of the story arc (such as it is), for the apes who are now controlling Wahlberg's earth are far more technologically and politically advanced than the apes who live in the future which he'd just left. The film has very few interesting moments, a noteworthy exception being when an elderly chimp played by NRA gun lobbyist Charlton Heston (who also played "Taylor" in the original film) expresses terror of guns. Finally, if you listen to Burton's commentary on the DVD, you may be dismayed by the difficulties he has when speaking his mind: "Just wanted a sort of a clean technology--something not too far in the future--something--uh--very clean, very--uh--but--uh. Circular was always important because I--. That was something I always felt was sort of important to the overall Planet-of-the-Apes mythology. There's a circular-in-nature to the goes-around-comes-around type feeling just in the overall structure, so [I] tried to keep that with the space stuff and--and--you know--keep it sort of clean and technological and--and--you know--that was all very important to set against the brutal--you know--ape world and [I] wanted to make that a real juxtaposition between the two." Get it?
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite as bad as I thought, but original towers over it
Review: I refused to watch the remake of Planet of the Apes on principal when it first came out, but finally saw it. The special effects are good, the Tim Burton world created is dark, atmospheric, and creative, but the plot is another story. It's good that they didn't take this too seriously and injected much camp into it. Marky Mark's first encounter with an ape has the ape saying, "Get your hands off me, you damn dirty human!", a reference to the original. Another is with Charleton Heston playing General Thane's (Tim Roth's) ape father and referring to humans, "Damn them all to hell!" A warrior ape "borrows" Barry Goldwater's 1964 line, "Extremism in the name of apes is no vice", but this line is obscure enough to make it a rip-off rather than a nod.
The plot is this: Marky Mark is on a space station in the year 2029 (that's plausible) training chimps to do work in space.
He enters a magnetic storm and goes through a time warp landing on a planet where they speak English, yet doesn't make the connection to Earth (in the original it was Heston himself who argued for English, even though inconsistent, more accessible). In this one even the humans speak English. Helena Bonham Carter portrays a "human rights" ape while her human counterpart Estella Warren usually just fills out the background scenery. Kris Kristopherson (Me and Bobby McGee) plays her father. Inconsistencies abound. One is Carter helping Marky to escape and he asks why: "Because...you...uh...er...different" I'm not joking, this is the explanation she gives. And to capture 4 escaped humans the whole ape army is mobilized. Roth has some incredible temper tantrums monkey jumping all over the place. Carter does some good "hoo,hoo, hoo, hoos" to intersperse her poor dialogue, and the gorillas have these ultra-deep monster voices. They worship Semus the first ape, and when Marky's chimp comes in a spaceship they bow down to him thinking he's Semus. But Roth is a progenitor of Semus and the top Gorilla is convinced by Marky that Semus actually "killed them all". So the whole culture is changed and apes and humans are ever after fully equal on the planet....no I can't follow it either. And another human ship lands to look for Marky, but the experimental apes on the ship take over and start the whole ape civilization. I won't give the "surprise" ending away, but suffice it to say we're dealing with alternate worlds here. Again, eee the far superior original, and wait for Hollywood to come up with something new rather than accepting mediocre remakes.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful images don't mean a good movie...
Review: Planet of The Apes is a Tim Burton film. And, knowing that it is in Burton's habits to put spectacular and beautiful yet dark and mysterious images on film, I expected a "Planet of The Apes" with the same story than the original, but with a different perspective in the images. But I was somehow disappointed to see that, sure the images were nice, though not as amazing as "Edward Scissorhands"' or "Batman"'s, but the script seemed to have forgotten. The film lasts two hours, but you don't see them pass away, because you feel like nothing happens in the film, but everything is happening at the same time. The movie could be separated in like three chapters; The beginning, the core and the ending. That's it, no surprises, nothing special, except the images and Tim Roth's acting. This film wasted lots of potential interesting performances *Spoilers warning*(Kris Kristofferson doesn't even play a role, he only runs and die, and Helena Bonham Carter has a very hollow and empty role as an ape who has more feelings, and her feelings are so hard to see because of the limited facial expression due to the make up). Plus, they put Estella Warren wearing some kind of leaves made bikini, isn't that superficial and commercial? This is the first Tim Burton film that deceives me, and I hope it's the last one. This is a very good example of a movie which has special and make up effects as a structure. many people won't realize it, because they'll be fascinated by the images, but this blind attitude is exactly what the makers expected. Planet of The Apes is more a (commercial) vision of The Planet of The Apes by Tim Burton. It is not so identic to the original, I couldn't say it's a remake. The ending is good though, but is still pretty predictable. But really, you can't really get inside of the movie, because it is not attaching enough, all you can do is look at the images...I give it 4/10.
Rating: 
Summary: Comparisons Allowed
Review: While it doesn't seem fair to compare this film to the Charleton Heston film, comparisons are obvious. But first let me say that this film as conceived is not a remake of the 1968 film, as simply another telling of the Pierre Boule original novel. That said, this film departs from the book more than the first film, with the exception of the surprise ending. The ending of this book is meant to shock, and does, although it's nothing like the ending of the first film. In this film, however, the ape actors improve over the originals by being more ape-like (I credit this to the director, Tim Burton, not really to the actors, I must add). They shriek and laugh in ape voices-- that is, the vocalizations sound just like real wild apes. Also, these apes don't walk as efficiently as humans; they have a splayed-hip walk that looks just like chimpanzees when they walk bi-pedally. The apes here also brachiate, an ape behavior missing in the original film, which goes miles to develop characters. This is a good science fiction yarn, with excellent effects. It's also a touching allegory for race relations, and for human treatment of simians. Marky Mark Wahlberg is the earth human stranded on the ape planet. Wahlberg is not an acting powerhouse, but he's playing a stoic military officer, with a singular focus on getting home, not at all interested in the implications of talking, thinking apes. Wahlberg manages to pull this off admirably. It may be that this role touched the limits of his ability, but since the role doesn't requires much subtlety, Wahlberg is up to it. Helena Bonham-Carter is unrecognizable as the sympathetic young ape, who believes in the unpopular idea of human-ape equality. This role requires much finesse, subtlety and raw talent. Signing Bonham-Carter for the role was a casting coup. Even if the film failed on all other points, it would still be watchable for her performance. I wish she'd won an Oscar. Don't let this film compete in your mind with the '68 version, so that loyalty to the earlier film makes you want to dislike this film. Take it as it is, and you will enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: The worst film Tim Burton has ever directed to date
Review: Undoubtadly the worst film that Tim Burton has ever directed; this re-make of Planet of the Apes tries hard to be a solid action/sci-fi film, but despite it's merits the film is just a mess. Not to mention some flat casting with Marky Mark Wahlberg finding himself on a planet overrun with highly intelligent apes who are in charge and humans are slaves. There are some nicely orchestrated action scenes (although some are just dull) and special effects to be found here, plus the ape makeup is fantastic and is reason enough to watch this otherwise dull movie. The rest of the otherwise stellar cast is beyond wasted: Helena Bonham Carter (the best looking ape I've ever seen), Tim Roth (one of the best character actors around today), Paul Giamatti, David Warner, Kris Kristofferson, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Charlton Heston in an inspired cameo which pays great homage to the original film, but the absurd ending (which also tries to pay homage to the original film) is beyond laughable. The DVD itself is loaded with tons of extras and Fox did an excellent job at assembling a superb DVD package, but it's just too bad the film is almost a waste.
Rating: 
Summary: Stick with the original
Review: This movie just doesn't have it. I personally didn't like the movie. I found the original much much better, if you can call this movie a remake since it had a totally different ending. This is one of those movies that just shouldn't of be remade, but it was. I can kinda of see that if they did have the original ending, people wouldn't be sattisfied with the movie. For those who don't know the storyline, the movie starts off somewhere in the near future. While in space, Major Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) acidentally goes into a black hole and comes out crash landing on a planet and not knowing where he is nor when he is. After this, the movie doesn't get bad till the ending. So overall, this movie isn't extremley bad. So if you still really want to watch it, you wont kill yourself when it's over (at least I don't think you will). But if you never see this movie, your not missing anything.
Rating:
Summary: Burton Gone Ape
Review: A poor adaptation of Pierre Boule's original book and of the original film starring Charlton Heston: there's no comparison and I don't mean that as a compliment. Another typical Burton caricature production which seems more like something prepared as advertisement for a McDonald's Happy Meal promotional toy collection. The story now takes place on some distant planet instead of Earth where Mark Wahlenberg lands by accident while conducting a chimp-pilot experiment. Trapped on what becomes a hostile ape planet, he gets help from good apes to fight the bad ones. Predictable plot, no character depth, and no real story worth pondering over; only a poorly directed bubble-gum film prepared for mass-consumption and aimed at a pre-pubecent audience. I give it two stars only because the special effects were very well done. All of the satirical elements present in Rod Serling's original script have been removed to leave nothing of worth. Whereas the original movie had a profound message about social evolution and ignorance, this movie is but a noble experiment in computer animation and nothing more. It's fun renting it to watch one time; there isn't much to watch the second time around. If you're counting on seeing an improved rendition of the original film, you'll be sorely disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Could have been better!
Review: Planet of the Apes: a story in which
Michael Jackson and his monkey, Bubbles,
get caught in a time vortex and wind up
mergeing into a semian love interest for
Mark Wahlberg. yikes. Well, this movie had a lot going for it
other than the poor choice of make-up for
a main character [not that the make-up was
'bad' - just too familiar!!!
Otherwise, all the characters looked great!] This is worth seeing for sci-fi enthusiasts
and really isn't a bad flick. Give it a chance
and try not to get bogged down by the MJ/Bubbles
fiasco. The Apes carry the movie!!
Rating: 
Summary: Different Perspective
Review: I have to agree with those that have said that, given this is merely a different perspective toward the same book, it's an excellent movie. I'm also a huge fan of the original movie series.
Rating:
Summary: Underwhelming remake gets the deluxe disc treatment again
Review: This re-release of the original two disc set isn't anything special. The idiotic plotting and narrative weakness hasn't been fixed. While Tim Burton is a fine and talented film director with a sharp eye, many of his films suffer from narrative holes big enough to drive a Mack truck through. Those previously films didn't have the disadvantage of such a poorly cast film. Tim Roth chews so much of the scenery I'm surprised any of the sets were left standing during shooting. To be fair, Roth appears to be making up for the lack of acting skills by two of the leads (and I'm not referring to Helen Bonham Carter). Mark Wahlberg's idea of emoting is to act like he's constantly out of breath. Perhaps the oxygen levels dropped on the planet and he's suffering from carbon dioxide poisoning. It would certain explain the performance and some of the idiotic decisions his character makes. There's entirely too much left to coincidence in the plot of this remake. I'm certainly not offended that they tried a different tact and, in fact, much of the basic plot elements could have been strung together to make an engaging, interesting film. That didn't happen here unfortunately. Still, Planet is interesting eye candy and for that I give it 3 stars. The extras on disc 2 I give 4 stars (although what's provided is out of proportion to the quality of the film itself--more is still less I suppose). The film itself and its goofy acting, deflated story and poor casting I'll give 1 star. It's not the worst film in the world but many of the elements here would have made Ed Wood proud. If you really love this film then stick with the previous DVD edition as there hasn't been much improvement and, in fact, it appears to be from the same original transfer. The occasional edge enhancements that cropped up in the original release are still here. The transfer itself is visually stunning at times. The extra audio tracks with commentary from Burton and composer Danny Elfman are interesting. The 5.1 mix still sounds really good despite some compression issues. On the whole, Planet mach 2 is a less than overwhelming experience. If you enjoyed the previous release, you'll enjoy this one but the only major difference you'll find is the digipak cardboard packaging and slipcase.
| 
