If you've checked out my earlier reviews, I am a big fan of the Planet of the Apes series. Five movies were made back in the late 1960's and early 1970's, spawning an animated TV series and a live-action TV series. Can Tim Burton give the franchise a needed shot in the arm?

Planet of the Apes is about Mark Wahlberg's space-pod (with Marky-Mark inside) crashing down to a planet ruled by apes. The bad apes are Tim Roth and Michael Clarke-Duncan, the good apes are Helena Bonham Carter and Cary-Hiroyuki. The comic relief ape is Paul Giamatti.

I'm glad Tim Burton didn't cop out and do a re-make of the original movie. Yeah, the title is the same of the original, but none of the characters have the same names (although there are parallels between certain characters in the original flick and this one). The plot isn't really the same either.

The music by Danny Elfman is pretty good and is definitely different from Jerry Goldsmith's Oscar-winning score for the original, which used all sorts of odd African instruments.

The acting in this movie.... The apes all do an awesome job, but the humans suck. Tim Roth is fantastic as the villain, Michael Clarke Duncan is mediocre as a gorilla general, Paul Giamatti is very funny in his role, Helena Bonham Carter gives a very touching performance, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (he played Shang Tsung in the Mortal Kombat movie, as well as the bad guy in The Phantom) portrays a sense of honor underneath tons of ape make-up.

On the human side, Mark Wahlberg gives a bland performance. He isn't very inspiring as a lead and I've only liked him in supporting roles that I've seen him in thus far. Zack says he's good in some other flicks, so I might be wrong on this one. Also, the girl who plays the hot "Barbarella-esque" chick gives an awful performance. I would call it the worst performance I've seen all year, but I've had to watch a lot of crap this summer...

The story is interesting, but it's certainly not as deep or philosophical as the original. The first half of the movie is closer to the original in tone, but the second half goes into summer popcorn movie mode. The ending is very, very cool.

One last thing, the make-up by Rick Baker is fucking amazing. Very, very realistic looking. Also the way the apes move is very effective, making these apes more towards the primal side than the more intellectual apes of the original.

I give Planet of the Apes (2001) ***1/2 out of ****.

Yeah. Mat says it would have been a cop-out if Tim Burton had done a re-make. Instead we get the steaming pile crap thats a stain on the orininal great film of the same name. I hated this god-awful movie. I hated the dialogue, that not only included lines form the original Planet of the Apes, but in instance that were meant to be funny to those who were familiar with the first one. It also happens to have the line, "Can't we all just get along?" The other big difference with this movie was the larger focus on action rather than the political messages that the first one contained. My hatred for this movie mostly comes from my love of the first one, but I did find it entertaining, so I'll give it ** out of ****. But only because it had a bunch of apes.