From the liner notes

Matthew Broderick stars as Jimmy Garrett, a screw-up Air Force jet jockey who is transferred to the ‘Experimental Pilot Performance Project’ where chimpanzees – including a remarkable young chimp named Virgil – are taught to operate flight simulators. But when Jimmy discovers that the chimps will ultimately be used in a horrific experiment, he desperately seeks out the university researcher (Hunt) who taught Virgil to communicate. Time is running out. The military is closing in. Can two unlikely heroes and an extraordinary group of apes defy the odds, escape the danger and end the top-secret terror of Project X?