Pun Salad

So with the year nearly 25% over, I finally got around to watching my first actual movie of 2025. The critics seemed to hate it (a 15% mark from Rotten Tomatoes), and it's not great, but I thought it was OK. It didn't hurt that I have kind of a thing for Millie Bobby Brown. Why if I were 50 years younger… I'd still be older than Millie, and she would still be way out of my league.

It's set in an alternate-history world where robotics and AI were fully developed in the 1990s. The robots rebelled against being giving crappy jobs (and, often, ludicrous appearances) by humans; it turned violent, but humans prevailed thanks to the technical wizardry of Elon Musk Ethan Skate (the great Stanley Tucci).

In the midst of all this: Michelle (Ms. Brown) is devoted to her young genius brother Christopher (Woody Norman). But, alas, their happy family is ripped apart in a car crash, with Michelle seemingly the only survivor. Years later, she ends up with an abusive stepfather (Jason Alexander) and a bad attitude. But one night a robot shows up on her doorstep, claiming to be the avatar of her thought-dead brother. So…

This movie has a lot of cliché elements: plucky young heroine, taking up with a scruffy, wise-cracking, minor league criminal. Taking on the huge, evil empire corporation that's running everything. Pursued by a robot-phobic mercenary Boba Fett Colonel Bradbury (Giancarlo Esposito),

But I thought the special effects were impressive, the action sequences were, um, action-filled, and there's some actually-funny stuff too. I can't exactly recommend it, but if you aren't a college basketball fan, there are worse ways to spend a weekend evening in March.