In 2011, Rupert Wyatt's Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes was released into theaters to a most apprehensive audience. Ultimately, the film would go on to be a pretty successful reboot, which afforded 20th Century Fox the opportunity to present us with the hotly anticipated Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, opening in theaters next Friday. But before people realized that the James Franco-fronted picture was actually worth their time, they had only one thing on their minds. We may have forgotten about the Tim Burton remake from 2001, but CinemaSins and Screen Junkies surely haven't – and they both have a lot of grievances to air with said remake.
We'll start with the Screen Junkies Honest Trailer, which labels the film as, "a reboot so disappointing, the franchise was debooted then rebooted ten years later." As is typical for the Honest Trailer format, this video focuses more on the surface level idiocy on display with this movie. Not to mention, it has the best plot summary I've ever read for Planet Of The Apes, distilling the film's plot into the following blurb:
When an Air Force captain abandons his orbital monkey research station to follow his pet chimp into an electrical storm, blah blah blah time travel, blah blah blah evil monkey society, blah blah blah uprising, ancient monkey prophecy, final battle, and the creepiest kiss ever."
Above everything else, Screen Junkies LOVES to pick on two things: Tim Burton's ability to pull prestigious names from his Roledex, no matter what the quality of the film may be; and the film's obsession with adapting/surpassing the original film's iconic moments. Because if there was anything the human race really wanted out of a Planet Of The Apes remake, it had to have been Aperaham Lincoln.
If you thought the Screen Junkies evaluation was too harsh on Tim Burton's monkey movie, then you're going to want to exit the building the way you came in, because Jeremy at CinemaSins is an even harsher critic.
In 9 minutes (or less), Jeremy takes his sweet time dissecting everything from Mark Wahlberg's acting to all of the science fiction cliches films like this love to exploit (including why in the world the research station would use a monkey instead of a drone to explore an electromagnetic field), and – above all else – the apes' apparent lack of knowledge about the very creatures they've somehow subjugated into a slave race. Looks like humanity just kinda stepped in front of its would be simian overlords and say, "Chain us up! We're yours!" The Planet Of The Apes could evolve in 30 years, but they couldn't bother to read a copy of Gray's Anatomy or any other medical texts detailing human behavior and physiology.
Whether you liked Tim Burton's Planet Of The Apes or not, you have to agree that the series' revival has hit a new stride that's comparable to that of the original franchise. The social allegory is back, and along with it a race of hyper-intelligent apes that actually know what they're doing when conquering a race of beings that used to be their superiors. Planet Of The Apes can now sink into our subconscious as a distant memory, as well as a warning of the wrath our species can incur when it tampers with forces it does not know how to control – starring Mark Wahlberg.
Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes opens on Friday, July 11th, starring Chimpan-A through Chimpan-Z.
