I don’t have a problem with screenwriters fudging scientific truths as long as they: are internally consistent with their made-up science; and manipulate the facts in the name of telling a good story.

In Apes, James Franco plays an earnest scientist who injects a gene therapy into his father’s bloodstream to try to cure his Alzheimer’s. A review from the Atlantic nicely summarizes the set-up: (Spoiler alert!)

A pharmaceutical chemist named Will Rodman (James Franco) has been testing a new anti-Alzheimer’s gene therapy on chimpanzees, who undergo astonishing cognitive enhancements as a result. Alas, just as he is selling his corporate board of directors on the need to conduct human trials, his star subject, a chimp named “Bright Eyes,” rampages