However, his exceptional intelligence doesn’t prevent him from ending up in a primate shelter after he attacks a belligerent neighbor who is berating Will’s dementia-riddled father. Along the way he masters sign language, intricate puzzles and challenging mental exercises. Meanwhile, Caesar grows from an adorable infant into a turbulent teen. At home, Will, unwilling to give up on his pharmaceutical study, attempts to revise the drug’s molecular makeup and uses his ailing father as a human guinea pig. When chimp handler, Robert Franklin (Tyler Labine) refuses to give the newborn a lethal injection, the young scientist sneaks the chimpanzee out of the building. But during a presentation to prospective investors, he and a company executive (David Oyelowo) discover potential side effects after their test ape goes berserk and demolishes much of the laboratory before breaking into the boardroom.Īs a result of the incident, Will’s program is shelved, the remaining lab animals are euthanized and Caesar becomes the only link to his research.
And his father’s (John Lithgow) battle against the memory-stealing malady causes him to rush through the trial process. But Caesar’s (Andy Serkis) cognitive skills far exceed those of a human 2-year-old thanks to an experimental drug injected into his mother before his birth.ĭriven to reverse the ravaging effect of Alzheimer’s Disease, Will Rodman (James Franco) is the scientist behind the brain-enhancing medication. That’s been the first word of a few toddlers I know.
It says something about the developmental process when the first word spoken by a monkey in this movie is “no”.