| 100 |
San Francisco Chronicle
The new Planet of the Apes is not a remake, and it's not a sequel. It is an amazing display of imagination.
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| 88 |
New York Post
The marvelous Burtonic gothic/nightmare production design -- scenery, weaponry, costumes, etc. constantly pleases the eye without ever distracting you from the plot.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Tribune
This century's Planet of the Apes is a rouser, a screaming-banshee fun house.
|
| 80 |
Newsweek
Jeff Giles
Has its flaws, but at its best it’s a fleet, fun action movie -- and certainly one of the cooler blockbusters that Hollywood will cough up this godforsaken summer.
|
| 80 |
Washington Post
Forget the heavy stuff. This monkey shines.
|
| 75 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
It has its flaws, and traditionalists are likely to think it falls well short of its inspiration, but it works on its own terms, it fills the screen with Burtonesque excitement and it strikes me as one of this tepid movie summer's better offerings.
|
| 75 |
USA Today
There's one reason to see Tim Burton's flawed, somewhat declawed but often amusing do-over of Planet of the Apes. The apes. What else?
|
| 75 |
Charlotte Observer
Stuff yourself with popcorn, let the gray matter rest and enjoy what may be the best two hours of nonsense you'll see this year.
|
| 70 |
New Times (L.A.)
Perfectly acceptable, deliriously charming...a goofy Bmovie dolled up like a square-jawed A-list blockbuster.
|
| 70 |
Salon.com
Past the first third, Planet of the Apes is entertaining enough, but it stops far too short of being completely seductive.
|
| 67 |
Austin Chronicle
Simply put, Burton's film lacks the social and political gravitas of the original, a film that was wholly of its time.
|
| 63 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Offers a primal vision of the primate order turned topsy-turvy. It is provocative. It is frightening. It is a mess.
|
| 63 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Burton's made a film that's respectful to the original, and respectable in itself, but that's not enough. Ten years from now, it will be the 1968 version that people are still renting.
|
| 63 |
Baltimore Sun
If only the director, or his deus, could have delivered us from the inevitable shock ending, which blends Darwin and Einstein with purest P.T. Barnum.
|
| 63 |
New York Daily News
As a story, Burton's Planet of the Apes is more of a comic-book creation than either of his "Batman" movies.
|
| 58 |
Entertainment Weekly
Are there surprises? A couple of big money ones, notably the ludicrous would-be jaw-dropper of a finale.
|
| 58 |
Portland Oregonian
Good, but, sadly, not good enough. Well-acted, beautifully shot and splendidly costumed, it's superior to the original in its looks, but not as potent or meaningful in its story line.
|
| 50 |
Miami Herald
Planet of the Apes is never quite boring -- the movie is constantly giving you something new to look at -- but it's still a disappointingly dull and underplotted ride.
|
| 50 |
LA Weekly
Overly familiar industrial product, a big-budgeted entertainment defined by its putatively big concept (apes rule), an underwritten script and a few flashes of Burton's visual genius and gently askew worldview.
|
| 50 |
Time
Mostly, the new film reminds us that swell production design is no substitute for a fresh, simple and startling idea.
|
| 50 |
Rolling Stone
With the exception of a battle scene with apes on all fours charging the humans, the film is monumentally silly.
|
| 50 |
TV Guide
This film is pure, empty (if gorgeous) spectacle, and the decision to loose the tongues of the ape planet's humans (they were mute in the original) undermines the contrast that lies at the heart of the story's power.
|
| 50 |
Boston Globe
It's too psychically flat and dramatically inert. Instead of reinvigorating a Hollywood classic, Burton only takes it to camp.
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
Burton is an imaginative director with a distinctive artistic vision, but his originality is nowhere to be seen in this by-the-numbers retread.
|
| 40 |
Los Angeles Times
Outside of a hyper-energetic, irresistibly evil portrayal by Tim Roth as General Thade, the baddest ape in town, the sad truth about Planet of the Apes is that, disappointingly, it's just not very much fun to watch.
|
| 40 |
The New York Times
When Mr. Burton's "Planet" fixes on being entertaining...it succeeds. But the picture states its social points so bluntly that it becomes slow-witted and condescending; it treats the audience as pets.
|
| 40 |
Washington Post
The longer I take to review this movie, the more the absurdities loom. So let me finish before I think about the story's stupidly plotted structure or recall how tiring it was to watch apes perpetually pushing humans to the ground or sending them pirouetting into the air.
|
| 40 |
New York Magazine
John Simon
Devoured by its own mechanical ostentation, generates no emotional involvement, and has a smart-ass, infinitely less powerful ending than the original.
|
| 40 |
Variety
Largely listless and witless, this extensive reworking of the 1968 sci-fi favorite simply isn't very exciting or imaginative; most surprisingly, given the material, it's also Burton's most conventional and literal-minded film, the one most lacking in his trademark poetic weirdness and bracing flights of fancy.
|
| 40 |
Slate
Planet of the Apes has been designed and photographed (by Phillipe Rousselot) with real artistry, but in all the ways that matter it's hack work.
|
| 40 |
Mr. Showbiz
The most disappointing aspect of Planet of the Apes is that, despite its presentation, the film is so very ordinary, without urgency or revelation.
|
| 30 |
Village Voice
It's a campy, juiced-up ker-splat, busy with clumsy pyrotechnics and never nearing the vicinity of satire.
|
| 30 |
Chicago Reader
As satire it's toothless and at times close to incoherent; its predictable swipes are aimed equally at conservative racists and bleeding-heart liberals.
|
| 10 |
Wall Street Journal
My Homo sapiens brain was boggled by the movie's clumsiness, while my heart was chilled by the chance that otherwise mature members of my species might mistake this disjointed botch for summer entertainment.
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