Now decades later that drone/VR technology has evolved so that people can become couch potatoes indulging in VR fantasies while using a fraction of their mind to do everyday labour, taking the place of the robots.
One day, orphan Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown) finds a fugitive robot in her backyard. It is in the form of Cosmo: a cartoon robot beloved by her younger brother who died around the time of the uprising. Through its rudimentary vocabulary of cartoon phrases it manages to persuade her that somehow it is him and that it needs her help.
To use a line from the movie itself "a tire fire floating on a sea of piss".
So much money and talent wasted on a thing that doesn't know who it's for or why it's there. Netflix bought Simon Stålenhag's IP so it doesn't matter that they didn't know what to do with it they were damn well going to use it regardless.
At the most basic level it's pitched as an "enjoyable family movie" about a likeable bunch of cute misfits taking on a big evil corporation in the name of autonomy and freedom but it does this so generically it could have been shat out of an AI script generator. The performances are execrable and you can almost feel the Russos just off screen telling MBB and Chris Pratt "now walk to your mark here and emote the line like this...". Chris Pratt does his shouty bro thing that by now has worn as thin with me as Ryan Reynolds still doing the thing he learned sold well in Blade: Trinity. There are various robots voiced by A/B list voice cast at undoubted huge expense and Stanley Tucci phones in a kind of Peter Weyland/Steve Jobs tech billionaire villain.
This however is broken by elements of the darkness in the original material poking through. At one point MBB looks pityingly at a homeless person zoned out in a Sentre neurocaster next to their cart of junk in a "We're not going to make it, are we, people I mean" way. Also there's the occasional swear that just seems out of place like "sea of piss".
Then there's Giancarlo Esposito's war hero/criminal depending on your view who's on the trail of the motley crew realising he's the latter and disconnecting in a way that's definitely not from the family friendly cute robots draft of the script.
On top of all this somebody must have realised the 80s/90s vibe of the original IP was getting left out so they stuck lots of retro pop culture stuff in. Big Mouth Billy Bass makes an appearance but the kids the cute robot version of the script is aimed at won't know WTF that is, nor any of the other stuff Chris Pratt has been scavenging and namedrops relentlessly. Likewise, 'PC': a robot built out of an IBM PS/2 on a trolley. I know what an IBM PS/2 looks like, most of the audience won't. At some point somebody says "hey that's a 1957 Gibson Les Paul, do you have any idea how hard that was to find!". Such an egregious brand name placement and one that had no place in the scene. They have to slow the shot down to fit the line in. This sort of absurdly detailed retro product placement was big in 'Ready Player One' and at least had a narrative reason to occur but here it's just utter cringe.
What we get on screen feels like a gross chimera of several variations on the story glued together with obligatory action scenes because they had more money than God. As it gets to the credits the final scene has a piano cover of Wonderwall playing. This tells you everything you need to know.
It's unlikely to actively offend you but please please watch something, anything else so Netflix might learn from this 4/10. In fact, watch "The Mitchells vs the Machines" instead which is similar but so much better.