Most Valuable Primate
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Jack is a three year old chimpanzee who has been the subject of an experiment by Dr. Kendall to teach him sign language. When funding for the project is cut off by the impatient Dr. Peabody, Jack is sold to a medical research lab. Afraid of what may happen to his simian friend, Dr. Kendall breaks Jack out of the laboratory. However Jack is accidentally sent to Canada, where in a strange twist of circumstance, he establishes himself as a superb hockey player. |
Having notched up a commercial hit as producer with a basketball-playing dog in Air Bud, Robert Vince scores an own goal with this calculatingly cute tale of a chimp who escapes from an animal experimentation lab and revives the fortunes of a struggling ice hockey team. Kevin Zegers returns as a sports mad kid who benefits from his pet's talents. However, more emphasis is placed on the fact that Jack the chimp has been trained in sign language and can communicate with Zegers's deaf sister, Jamie Renee Smith, who keeps him out of the clutches of avaricious scientist, Oliver Muirhead. A sequel followed in 2001.