10 More Movie Remakes Better Than The Original
2. The Planet Of The Apes Quadrilogy (2011 - Present)
No, not Tim Burton's effort. The Mark Wahlberg-led 2001 remake would likely wind up on a list the exact opposite of this one. The subsequent reboot of the franchise, however, beginning with Rise of the Planet of the Apes and most recently added to with Kingdom certainly deserves a spot here.
The original movie that featured Charlton Heston in the lead role as George Taylor in 1968 is a classic, certainly. Falling to an unknown planet, the astronaut was taken prisoner by apes until he realised he had been on Earth all along. With the 2011 reboot, this story was attacked from a different angle.
Instead of the planet itself being a mystery, Rise, Dawn, and War detailed exactly how Earth was taken over by apes, and it can be said without hyperbole that this is one of the best trilogies of this century. Much like The Jungle Book, the almost flawless CGI is paramount to its success, as well as one of the strongest cinematic protagonists in recent years, Andy Serkis' Caesar.
There was unfortunately a slight drop in the quality of the franchise when it was made a quadrilogy by Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes in 2024, but nothing that could take away from what the previous three movies built up. A powerful story about a struggle for dominance that made everyone watching actually root for the apes to take over.