Metacritic reviews

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.