This is one of the types of time loop movies where someone is trying to achieve a goal and keeps going back in time to try new things until it happens. It can be an entertaining premise.
He goes into a diner to pick his people. He's done this well over a hundred times so he knows everyone with their strengths and weaknesses. It becomes amusing when he says he won't take one guy and he keeps trying to volunteer. This time the combination includes someone new and he's pragmatic about trying it again.
The intent is to prevent an AI system from going rogue by installing control programming before it takes over. That's his goal and that's what he's going to do, gosh darn it.
One of the people who goes with has had a very odd experience with a school shooting. As she's waiting three women show up like they're going to brunch and their kids have also been involved. They're completely uncaring and do the "First time?" to her. They give her a card where she can get a copy of her son and meets people who are just as unconcerned and on multiple copies of their kids. It's rather head tiltingly odd. She gets her copy and she realizes just how much he's not like her son at all. She's fraught enough to try another thing that's more of an audio copy of her son that she can interact with.
He's got the whole thing mapped out with the hazards from previous attempts. There's a pair of men who are trying to stop them and he doesn't know who they are or why. With this group, what's left of it, he gets further than ever before.
The group includes a pair of teachers, one of which is concerned about what the kids are watching on their phones, the woman who lost her son, a couple of other people, and someone new he calls Princess because she's in a puffy dress.
The teacher who's got the concerns was seeing how much the kids are glued to their phones, how everything they're watching is the same, and is compelled to touch the screen of one. It changes to a rotating pyramid and all the kids are then focused on getting him like in a zombie movie. That's his introduction to the impending AI.
There's some chase stuff. They lose a party member or two. They get to the house and find out he doesn't really know what to do because he's never made it that far.
As he's detailing everything that's come between him and the house before he's rattling off all kinds of oddities like zombies and other stuff. The group asks why it can't be nice things and rattle some of them off like kittens or centaurs. He doesn't know and they go to make the crossing, just as the school full of kids finds them and makes it difficult.
They get to the house, a huge centaur made of kittens shows up (very odd indeed), he figures out the people who live there are actors, in the basement is the real situation. There's a kid on a pile of cables typing away, building the AI.
The time traveler guy has a countdown watch on his wrist that we get to see at various points. They're down to under five minutes or so and it's him and Princess. Let me talk about her quick.
She's got a developed backstory, which is a big clue. She's allergic to wifi and worked as a kid's party princess because it was safe for her, until more kids got phones. Her boyfriend was of the same mind of keeping technology to a minimum until he gives in to try the virtual reality glasses and breaks up with her to go into the virtual reality for real forever. That's why she's at the diner that night.
The time travel guy has a bit of backstory where he's living with his mom away from all the virtual reality stuff. He finds one of the goggles, puts it on briefly, it's enough to trigger a hunter drone that sends a missile into the bunker where his mom was. So he's got motivation to make it not happen.
M'kay. They're in the basement. The kid is glued to the very large screen. He's a copy of someone because he's got the barcode on the back of his neck that they all get. When they take the keyboard away he seems to start to die so they give it back. He knows what they're trying to do and uses cables to pin them to the wall.
They figure out that there's no way they can plug the USB into whatever the kid is sitting on. There's toys coming to life to do bad things to them. They figure out they can plug the drive into the woman's kid's drive that she's been carrying then plug that into any of the multiple wall receptacles. Princess is the one to do it since she's not as affected by the situation as the rest of them.
There's some flashback stuff that shows she's currently pregnant with who will be the time travel guy. Big shocker since he'd been protecting her all along the trip. She does plug it in and everything stops.
They leave the house, everyone is joyous. The kids are all right. The woman's son is back without the barcode. Success! Time travel guy got stabbed in the basement so he's sitting against the house as Princess comes to terms with the fact he's her son.
Then he looks at her and says maybe she'll fix reality, just not this one and he blinks away. The computer kid gives a victorious air guitar riff with one of those wide mouth-tongue out expressions. The kitten centaur comes back to munch on a few people.
Then it starts over in the diner. He shows up again but this time he brings a rat with him and sits down with Princess. Instead of trying to install the control protocols his idea is to infect everyone with the thing she has that makes her avoid technology. Um. OK.
It was an interesting ride. I didn't realize that everything he was talking about that prevented him from getting to the house were AI prompts until the centaur made of kittens showed up. And I think the timer went to zero well before Princess got anything connected. I'd have to see it again to confirm and I don't care enough.
They did seem to set it up for a sequel but I don't think it will happen. There's just not enough story to make a second movie. The change in plan also doesn't make sense because she's not sick, it seems genetic. But hey, it's a movie.
Overall it was enjoyable and not a movie where you're expecting a lot of depth. The guy's complete lack of concern for people getting killed was amusing. Him knowing how everyone would react to situations made for a good setup for who he decided to take. The whole "AI is bad" is timely.
The copies of kids killed in school shootings and the parents treating it like a minor inconvenience after a while was either a pointed reference to something or just odd. They got back AI versions of their kids either with the physical copy or the audio one so it was more a case of which one they preferred. There's no explanation of how these companies got the information to make the AI copies but again, movie that's against AI so there you go.
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