Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
After a spectacular crash-landing on an uncharted planet, brash astronaut Leo Davidson finds himself trapped in a savage world where talking apes dominate the human race. Desperate to find a way home, Leo must evade the invincible gorilla army led by Ruthless General Thade.
Tim Burton's 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes is a visually ambitious but narratively muddled effort. The plot rehashes the original's premise without meaningfully improving upon it, and the screenplay feels underdeveloped with thin character motivations. The acting is uneven — Tim Roth chews scenery effectively as Thade, but Mark Wahlberg's lead performance is flat and charismatic, while most human characters are forgettable. Cinematography is one of the film's stronger suits, with Burton's distinctive visual flair and Rick Baker's extraordinary ape makeup and creature work lending the film a striking aesthetic. Novelty is low given it's a remake that doesn't substantially reinvent the source material and lacks the satirical sharpness of the 1968 original. The ending — a twist on the iconic Statue of Liberty reveal — is genuinely surprising and inventive even if it raises more logical questions than it answers, earning it slight credit for audacity.