Tim Burton's 2001 Planet of the Apes is a mess. It can't decide if it wants to be serious or campy. Mark Wahlberg looks confused for most of it. But I keep coming back to it, and I think that says something.
A Different Kind of Story
What sets Burton's version apart from the rest of the franchise is the setup. Leo Davidson isn't watching humanity fall. He's just some guy who crashed on a planet where apes run things and humans are basically livestock. This changes the whole feel of the movie. There's actual wonder here, actual discovery. He's not mourning anything. He's trying to survive a place he doesn't understand and get home.
Because of this, the movie gets to be playful in ways the newer films can't. The apes are theatrical and expressive and, honestly, kind of ridiculous. Tim Roth snarls his way through every scene as General Thade. Paul Giamatti does comedy bits as a scheming slave trader. The whole time I was watching, I kept thinking these apes must know the Grinch. There's something very Who-ish about the prosthetic designs. Rick Baker's makeup work is legitimately impressive, but it gives the whole movie this storybook quality that I find charming.
It Wants to Teach You Something
For all its campiness, the 2001 film has real ideas in it. It's basically a parable about prejudice. Helena Bonham Carter plays Ari, an ape who advocates for human rights in a society that views them as animals. It's not subtle, but it doesn't need to be. The movie asks who deserves a place in society and who gets to decide, and it does this with broad strokes and exaggerated characters. Some people find this annoying. I think it's earnest in a way I appreciate.
Burton's version works almost like a fable. It wants to teach you something. The newer films don't really operate this way.
The Reboot Trilogy Does Something Else Entirely
When Fox rebooted the franchise in 2011 with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, they went in a completely different direction. Rise, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), and War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) are militaristic and emotionally heavy. Andy Serkis plays Caesar through motion capture, and his performance anchors the whole trilogy. The action is in your face. The stakes feel enormous because we're watching human civilization collapse in real time.
The visual effects are also just insane. There are moments in Dawn and War where I forgot I was looking at CGI. Rain dripping off Caesar's fur. Subtle twitches in his expression. The way the apes move through environments with actual weight. That moment where you realize "wait, that was computer-generated?" is one of the coolest feelings movies can give you.
Kingdom Might Be the Best One
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) might be my favorite in the entire franchise. Wes Ball set it about 300 years after War, which was a bold choice. Caesar is a mythologized figure now. Human civilization has completely regressed. This is science fiction in the truest sense.
The earlier reboot films, while technically depicting a world overtaken by apes, always felt grounded in the present. Recognizable settings. Familiar technology. Kingdom breaks from that. Ape clans have developed their own cultures and belief systems independent of each other. The scenery is full of overgrown ruins and forgotten human structures reclaimed by nature. You can tell a lot of work went into building this world.
What makes Kingdom feel like real sci-fi to me is how it commits to exploring the premise. It's not just asking how apes could take over. It's asking what happens thousands of years later, when the memory of that takeover has faded into legend. The film deals with legacy and mythology and how history gets distorted over time. The fact that it takes these ideas seriously while still being an entertaining action movie is impressive.
Two Different Approaches
Comparing Burton's 2001 film to the reboot trilogy feels almost unfair because they're trying to do such different things. The newer films are prestige blockbusters with Oscar-nominated effects and deeply emotional character arcs. Burton's version is a quirky mid-budget movie that never quite figured out what it wanted to be.
I gravitate toward the reboot films for their technical achievements and their willingness to take the premise seriously. But I keep returning to the 2001 film for its weirdness and its sincerity. It's willing to be silly while still trying to say something, and I respect that.
The reboot trilogy shows you civilization crumbling in photorealistic detail. Burton's film shows you Mark Wahlberg arguing with a bunch of apes who look like they belong in Whoville. They're both worth watching for completely different reasons.