It's hard to think of two creatures as alike as Caesar and Nim Chimpsky.

Both are chimpanzees born in laboratory conditions and separated from their mothers at birth. Both were raised in human homes, taught sign language and looked after by Ph.D.-holding scientists. When each flashed his wild chimp side, he was confined in a squalid cage. And, with both, humanity doesn't come out looking like the planet's most enlightened species.

There are two major differences. Caesar, the central character in director Rupert Wyatt's thriller "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," is fictional and his story ends in triumph — for him and his species, anyway. Nim, whose unhappy life is profiled in James Marsh's thoughtful documentary "Project Nim," was a very real chimp whose story had a tragic conclusion.

"Rise of the Planet of the Apes," a prequel of sorts to the 1968 classic "Planet of the Apes," molds elements from the 1972 installment "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" into an alarming new package.

San Francisco genetics researcher Will Rodman (James Franco) is running clinical trials on a daring drug that could rewire the nervous system and stimulate brain growth. Will tells his tycoon boss, Steven Jacobs (David Oyelowo), that if successful, the drug could cure Alzheimer's — which afflicts Will's father, Charles (John Lithgow).

Work on the drug stops when Will's test chimp Bright Eyes goes berserk and must be killed. Will discovers Bright Eyes was hiding her baby in the lab — a baby chimp that Will takes home and raises in secret, and gives the name Caesar. Caesar has inherited the drug's mind-expanding properties from his mother, and his mental capacity grows at a fantastic rate.

But Caesar's chimp wildness and cunning are growing, too. After attacking an obnoxious neighbor, Caesar lands in a brutal primate house. Meanwhile, Will is allowed to develop a new version of the anti-Alzheimer's drug — one that has world-changing consequences.

Wyatt (who directed the prison yarn "The Escapist," which played at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival) builds a tense and compelling drama from a tight script by the husband-and-wife team of Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. The story asks the big "science playing God" questions without getting pedantic, and throws in winking references to the "Planet of the Apes" franchise — including Charlton Heston and the Statue of Liberty — without falling into the campy silliness that overtook Tim Burton's 2001 "Planet of the Apes" remake.

The movie is blessed with a strong supporting cast that includes Frieda Pinto ("Slumdog Millionaire") as a caring veterinarian who becomes Will's girlfriend and Bryan Cox ("The Bourne Ultimatum") and Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy from the "Harry Potter" films) as the father-and-son operators of Caesar's chimp prison.

The most remarkable performance is the one hidden in plain sight: the computer-generated Caesar, meticulously rendered by the Weta Digital effects house and brilliantly performed by Andy Serkis — who has made a career out of his stellar motion-capture work as Gollum in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy and in the title role in the "King Kong" remake. Serkis brings power and intelligence to Caesar and to the movie.

"Project Nim" begins like "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," but with a sadder conclusion. The project began in 1975 (two years after the fifth and final "Planet of the Apes" movie), the brainchild of Columbia University behavioral psychologist Herbert Terrace. The goal was to study whether chimps could learn language, something the linguist Noam Chomsky theorized was impossible.

Terrace procured a baby chimp — taken literally from his mother's arms at a primate research facility in Oklahoma — and named him Nim Chimpsky (a joke aimed at Chomsky). He cajoled Stephanie Lafarge, his former graduate student (and ex-lover), to raise Nim in the brownstone on Manhattan's Upper West Side that she shared with her husband and their children. The living arrangement was unorthodox, and the scientific methods lax.

Eventually, Nim passed through many hands — from Terrace's classroom back to the Oklahoma facility and eventually to a medical-research lab in upstate New York. Along the way, he was treated with aloofness from Terrace, while receiving well-meaning but sometimes clueless care by others. The only primate who comes out as sympathetic is the chimp.

Marsh (who won an Oscar for his documentary "Man on Wire") combines revealing interviews, archival footage and illustrative re-enactments to paint a portrait of human hubris in pursuit of scientific glory. In that way, it's much the same story as "Rise of the Planet of the Apes." The difference is that in fiction, the humans pay for their folly; in the real world, only the animals do.

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Rise of the Planet of the Apes

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Project Nim

It's not nice to monkey around with Mother Nature, as shown by these two powerful films — one a thriller, the other a documentary.

Where • "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" at theaters everywhere; "Project Nim" at the Broadway Centre Cinemas.

When • Both open today.

Rating • Both are PG-13; "Rise" for violence, terror, some sexuality and brief strong language, "Nim" for some strong language, drug content, thematic elements and disturbing images.

Running time • "Rise" is 108 minutes; "Nim" is 93 minutes.