Now I will admit I love Tim Burton and most of his work but I too was shocked and fearful of his agreement to take the helm of this sci-fi action flick revamp/re-imagining. Many directors were considered and to be honest I think many of them would have been perfect for the film but Burton does add his usual unique artistic style which can be glimpsed throughout the film in armour design, landscapes sets etc.. So straight to the point I actually liked this Burton version of 'Apes' mainly because its a fun romp which is both silly entertaining cheese and has that classic semi serious sci-fi element to it. First up the visuals in the film are tremendously good and really make the film stand out, total kudos to Rick Baker and his team, the man totally nails the ape look for all the characters to a tee. The best clearly being Roth as Thade with a fantastic makeup job, next up must be Duncan in his gorilla makeup but how about Shadix and Giamatti in their orangutan (I think) makeup...amazing! The film wins with the look for sure, not only is the makeup excellent but the sets are nicely worked, location is well suited, the apes costumes and battle gear is well designed and the space sequences also look and work well. All in all its pretty much like a top class Star Trek film...I mean a good Star Trek film by the way. Casting choices were good accept for Wahlberg who wasn't quite right for me. Thankfully we had no Depp to endure here but the use of many solid character actors such as Warner and the imaginative use Tagawa really help lift the film, who could imagine Tagawa as a gorilla. I really enjoyed the film on my second viewing, my first was on release at the cinema, and I believe its because the 'Apes' classic plot can be made many ways and is open to interpretation from different angles, its not a case of it only works one way like a lot of classic films, 'Apes' is a franchise that you can seem to mould and recreate without upsetting the originals. This Burton vision is simple yet highly enjoyable as a fun sci-fi romp, not too heavy, not just copying the original, touch of artistic license and the attempt at a twist ending which was brave but rather illogical, trying to equal the original but failing there I'm afraid. Still the little use of CGI for much of the film is always nice in my book.

Watched this again, for the first time since it came out, now that I've seen the original, and now my fascination with this franchise will have to delve even deeper, to the source material. I'm not sure if Burton & Co. worked from the novel, but this is a wildly different film than the original, and I liked it much less. The original's themes, particularly those that had to do with the possession of knowledge and the ethics of science, have been replaced by cheap suggestions of racial profiling... and instead of an insistent doctor, the ape sympathetic to the humans' plight is a generic revolutionary, complete with military surplus-style coat. I have to acknowledge the excellent end scene - I won't spoil it, but suffice to say it's hard to measure up to the original's - and the early line, "Get your hands off me, you damn dirty human," which was playful, but this film doesn't even have the B-movie charm. It's lazy action that's too long, complete with a too-epic Danny Elfman score, and it does a disservice to decent acting by, among others, Tim Roth and Helena Bonham Carter. Finally: why was Dr. Zaius basically written out? This adaptation came out around the same time the Republicans regained power in the U.S., and I wonder if the replacement of the catholic-esque philosopher king Zaius by the power-through-might Thade in this version was to direct our eyes in that direction...? In any case, it's an adaptation interesting enough to generate discussion, but that doesn't mean I enjoyed watching it. Without question, the original will outlast this remake.