Scientist Will Rodman is determined to find a cure for Alzheimer's, the disease which has slowly consumed his father Charles. Will feels certain he is close to a breakthrough and tests his latest serum on chimpanzees, noticing dramatic increases in intelligence and brain activity in the primate subjects. A baby called Caesar, born to one of the test chimps, is scheduled to be destroyed so Will smuggles the animal home where he raises the infant as his own, little knowing that the onset of a war for supremacy has begun...