Planet of the Apes

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: July 27, 2001

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

50	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

Bob Graham

The new Planet of the Apes is not a remake, and it's not a sequel. It is an amazing display of imagination. Read full review

Michael Wilmington

This century's Planet of the Apes is a rouser, a screaming-banshee fun house. Read full review

Jonathan Foreman

The marvelous Burtonic gothic/nightmare production design -- scenery, weaponry, costumes, etc. constantly pleases the eye without ever distracting you from the plot. Read full review

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. Read full review

Rita Kempley

Forget the heavy stuff. This monkey shines. Read full review

Susan Wloszczyna

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? Read full review

Lawrence Toppman

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. Read full review

William Arnold

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. Read full review

New Times (L.A.)Robert Wilonsky

Perfectly acceptable, deliriously charming...a goofy Bmovie dolled up like a square-jawed A-list blockbuster. Read full review

Stephanie Zacharek

Past the first third, Planet of the Apes is entertaining enough, but it stops far too short of being completely seductive. Read full review

Marc Savlov

Simply put, Burton's film lacks the social and political gravitas of the original, a film that was wholly of its time. Read full review

Roger Ebert

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. Read full review

Jack Mathews

As a story, Burton's Planet of the Apes is more of a comic-book creation than either of his "Batman" movies. Read full review

Michael Sragow

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.

Carrie Rickey

Offers a primal vision of the primate order turned topsy-turvy. It is provocative. It is frightening. It is a mess. Read full review

Owen Gleiberman

Are there surprises? A couple of big money ones, notably the ludicrous would-be jaw-dropper of a finale. Read full review

Kim Morgan

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. Read full review

Peter Travers

With the exception of a battle scene with apes on all fours charging the humans, the film is monumentally silly. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh

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. Read full review

Jay Carr

It's too psychically flat and dramatically inert. Instead of reinvigorating a Hollywood classic, Burton only takes it to camp.

David Sterritt

Burton is an imaginative director with a distinctive artistic vision, but his originality is nowhere to be seen in this by-the-numbers retread. Read full review

Richard Schickel

Mostly, the new film reminds us that swell production design is no substitute for a fresh, simple and startling idea.

Rene Rodriguez

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. Read full review

Manohla Dargis

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. Read full review

A.O. Scott

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. Read full review

Desson Thomson

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. Read full review

Kenneth Turan

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. Read full review

John Simon

Devoured by its own mechanical ostentation, generates no emotional involvement, and has a smart-ass, infinitely less powerful ending than the original. Read full review

Todd McCarthy

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. Read full review

David Edelstein

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. Read full review

Mr. ShowbizLarry Terenzi

The most disappointing aspect of Planet of the Apes is that, despite its presentation, the film is so very ordinary, without urgency or revelation.

Jonathan Rosenbaum

As satire it's toothless and at times close to incoherent; its predictable swipes are aimed equally at conservative racists and bleeding-heart liberals. Read full review

Michael Atkinson

It's a campy, juiced-up ker-splat, busy with clumsy pyrotechnics and never nearing the vicinity of satire. Read full review

Joe Morgenstern

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.