Trolling #43: Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes RULES!

Ape shall not kill ape. But it’s okay for a chimp go get on a horse and gun down a human. In fact, that sort of thing is encouraged.

Although it is by no means the worst film to come from the long-running Planet of the Apes film series (soon to be an eight-film affair that certainly has its share of lows), Tim Burton’s remake is often hailed as such. When it was first released in July of 2001, reviews were a bit mixed (it holds a surprisingly high 45% on Rotten Tomatoes), but since then, the general cultural consensus seem to have tilted toward infamy. Many people instantly jump to Tim Burton’s film as the sure nadir of the famously campy franchise, holding it up as how not to remake a movie. And this was long before remakes and adaptations became the majority of Hollywood product.

What’s more, people started citing Planet of the Apes as a turning point in Burton’s career, indicating that it was here that he fell off the wagon and started making bad movies. Never mind that his next film was the very good Big Fish, and he would also go on to make Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd, Frankenweenie, and the underrated Dark Shadows. No. None of that matters. Planet of the Apes sucks in the mind of the public, and that’s that.

Here at Trolling, however, we reach deep into those hate wells, pull out the darkest and the stickiest, and we polish off the vitriol. And, as such, we have exhumed Planet of the Apes from those fathomless hate reservoirs, re-watched it, and discovered something amazing: Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes RULES! It’s a wonderful, wonderful film. Let’s delve in and discover.



The film is oddly paced, and I can’t speak to some of the acting (Estella Warren is certainly not at her best here), but it’s most certainly not the pile of garbage that it gets credit for being. Indeed, this is a pretty darn good, weird-looking, fun-to-watch sci-fi nugget of craziness. It deserves your eye. Watch it again, and I assure you’ll love it.

Until next week, let the hate mail flow.  


Witney Seibold is the head film critic for Nerdist, and a contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly articles Trolling here on Crave, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind. 

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