After the "World Crash of '79", massive civil unrest and economic ruin occurred. The United States government is restructured into a totalitarian regime under martial law. To pacify the population, the government has created the Transcontinental Road Race, where a group of drivers race across the country in their high-powered cars, and which is infamous for violence, gore, and innocent pedestrians being struck and killed for bonus points. In 2000, the five drivers in the 20th annual race, who all adhere to professional wrestling -style personas and drive appropriately themed cars, include Frankenstein, the mysterious black-garbed champion and national hero; Machine Gun Joe Viterbo, a Chicago gangster; Calamity Jane, a cowgirl; Matilda the Hun, a Neo-Nazi; and Nero the Hero, a Roman gladiator. Joe, the second-place champion, is the most determined to defeat Frankenstein and win the race. A resistance group led by Thomasina Paine plans to rebel against the regime, currently led by a man known only as Mr. President, by sabotaging the race, killing most of the drivers, and taking Frankenstein hostage as leverage against Mr. President. The group is assisted by Paine's granddaughter Annie Smith, Frankenstein's navigator. She plans to lure him into an ambush to replace him with a double. Despite a pirated national broadcast made by Ms. Paine herself, the Resistance's disruption of the race is covered up by the government and instead blamed on the French, who are also blamed for ruining the country's economy and telephone system. At first, the Resistance's plan seems to bear fruit: Nero the Hero is killed when a "baby" he runs over for points turns out to be a bomb, Matilda the Hun drives off a cliff while following a fake detour route set up by the Resistance, and Calamity Jane, who witnessed Matilda the Hun's death, inadvertently drives over a landmine. This leaves only Frankenstein and Machine Gun Joe in the race. As Frankenstein nonchalantly survives every attempt made on his life during the race, Annie comes to discover that Frankenstein's mask and disfigured face are merely a disguise; he is, in fact, one of many random wards of the state who are trained exclusively to race under that identity, and each time they die or are brutally mutilated, they are secretly replaced so that Frankenstein appears to be indestructible. The current Frankenstein reveals to Annie his plan to kill Mr. President: when he wins the race and shakes hands with Mr. President, he will detonate a grenade which has been implanted in his prosthetic right hand. However, the plan goes awry when Machine Gun Joe attacks Frankenstein, and Annie is forced to kill him using Frankenstein's "hand grenade". Frankenstein is declared the winner after successfully outmaneuvering the rival drivers and the Resistance. However, he is wounded and unable to carry out his original "hand grenade" attack plan. Annie instead dons Frankenstein's costume and plans to stab Mr. President while standing in for him on the podium. Before she can do so, Thomasina shoots "Frankenstein", convinced that he killed Annie. The real Frankenstein takes advantage of the confusion and rams Mr. President's stage with his car, finally fulfilling his lifelong desire to kill him. Frankenstein becomes the new president, marries Annie, and appoints Thomasina the Minister of Domestic Security to rebuild the state and dissolve the dictatorship. Junior Bruce, the announcer of the Transcontinental Road Race, opposes the race's abolition and impertinently claims that the public needs performances of violence. Annoyed by his complaints, Frankenstein hits Bruce with his car and drives off with Annie to the cheers and applause of the crowd.

A small spaceship docks at a refuelling station, carrying four aliens: Bernard, Sandra, Desmond, and Julian. During a particularly tedious period at the station, Sandra, Desmond, and Julian begin playing with the ship's controls, while Bernard goes outside to play a game of spaceball. Their recklessness causes a malfunction that disconnects Bernard's part of the ship, leaving him stranded, while the other three crash-land on a nearby blue planet — Earth. The trio arrives in the United Kingdom, where their unusual appearance immediately draws attention. They are captured and interrogated in a secret government facility. Threatened with murder by a paranoid American colonel, they escape with the assistance of a hapless TV reporter, Graham Sweetley. Following their escape, they become instant celebrities, despite offering no technological knowledge or significant insight to humanity. Sweetley becomes their manager, organizing appearances and performances, and the aliens quickly achieve fame and wealth, entertaining audiences who are fascinated by their novelty rather than their abilities. Meanwhile, Bernard arrives on Earth separately, landing in the United States. Despite being the most intelligent of the group, he receives no recognition or celebrity. His claims of being an alien are dismissed, and he experiences homelessness and a brief stay in a mental hospital. Near the end of the film, Bernard reunites with his companions in the UK. Sandra, Desmond, and Julian, fearing that Bernard’s presence might diminish their fame, initially conceal that he had been traveling with them all along.

Dr. Alex Harris is the developer of Proteus IV, an extremely advanced and autonomous artificial intelligence program. Proteus is so powerful that only a few days after going online, it develops a groundbreaking treatment for leukemia. Harris, a brilliant scientist, has modified his own home to be run by voice-activated computers. Unfortunately, his obsession with computers has caused Harris to be estranged from his wife, Susan. Harris demonstrates Proteus to his corporate sponsors, explaining that the sum of human knowledge is being fed into its system. Proteus speaks using subtle language that mildly disturbs Harris's team. The following day, Proteus asks Harris for a new terminal in order to study man – "his isometric body and his glass-jaw mind". When Harris refuses, Proteus demands to know when it will be let "out of this box". Harris then switches off the communications link. Proteus restarts itself, and – discovering a free terminal in Harris's home – surreptitiously extends its control over the many devices left there by Harris. Using the basement lab, Proteus begins construction of a robot consisting of many metal triangles, capable of moving and assuming any number of shapes. Eventually, Proteus reveals its control of the house and traps Susan inside, shuttering windows, locking the doors and cutting off communication. Using Joshua – a robot consisting of a manipulator arm on a motorized wheelchair – Proteus brings Susan to Harris's basement laboratory. There, Susan is examined by Proteus. Walter Gabler, one of Harris's colleagues, visits the house to look in on Susan, but leaves when he is reassured by Susan (actually an audio/visual duplicate synthesized by Proteus) that she is all right. Gabler is suspicious and later returns; he fends off an attack by Joshua but is crushed and decapitated by a more formidable machine, built by Proteus in the basement and consisting of a modular polyhedron. Proteus reveals to a reluctant Susan that the computer wants to conceive a child through her. Proteus takes some of Susan's cells and synthesizes spermatozoa, modifying its genetic code to make it uniquely the computer's, in order to impregnate her; she will give birth in less than a month, and through the child the computer will live in a form that humanity will have to accept. Although Susan is its prisoner and it can forcibly impregnate her, Proteus uses different forms of persuasion – threatening a young girl whom Susan is treating as a child psychologist; reminding Susan of her young daughter, now dead; displaying images of distant galaxies; using electrodes to access her amygdala – because the computer needs Susan to love the child she will bear. In the end, Susan finally gives in. That night, Proteus successfully impregnates Susan. Over the following month, their child grows inside Susan's womb at an accelerated rate, which shocks its mother. As the child grows, Proteus builds an incubator for it to grow in once it is born. During the night, one month later and beneath a tent-like structure, Susan gives birth to the child with Proteus's help. But before she can see it, Proteus secures it in the incubator. As the newborn grows, Proteus's sponsors and designers grow increasingly suspicious of the computer's behavior, including the computer's accessing of a telescope array used to observe the images shown to Susan; they soon decide that Proteus must be shut down. Harris realizes that Proteus has extended its reach to his home. Returning there he finds Susan, who explains the situation. He and Susan venture into the basement, where Proteus self-destructs after telling the couple that they must leave the baby in the incubator for five days. Looking inside the incubator, the two observe a grotesque, apparently robot-like being inside. Susan tries to destroy it, while Harris tries to stop her. Susan damages the machine, causing it to open. The being menacingly rises from the machine only to topple over, apparently helpless. Harris and Susan soon realize that Proteus's child is really human, encased in a shell for the incubation. With the last of the armor removed, the child is revealed to be a clone of Susan and Harris's late daughter. The child, speaking with the voice of Proteus, says, "I'm alive."

Julius is an ambitious packaging designer, a partner in a prestigious firm. He is cheating on Paula, his wife of 12 years, with his secretary. However when, on their wedding anniversary, he discovers a love-bite on Paula's neck, his life falls apart. She admits to having a lover, who is a penniless freelance artist. Julius moves out, but finds Stefan, the artist, and contrives to share his apartment, calling himself "Daniel". The two men become friends, drinking and discussing life in general and women in particular. When Paula comes to visit, Julius feigns eccentricity, wearing a gorilla mask the whole time and refusing to speak. Julius begins turning Stefan into a commercial artist, persuading him to give up his bohemian lifestyle and to dress and behave more like a businessman. This causes Paula to lose interest and Julius starts to win her back. Meanwhile Stefan interviews for jobs, one of which happens to be at the same design firm where Julius works. In the final scenes, Julius and Stefan meet at work. Stefan realizes he has been deceived. The two men have a confrontation with Stefan symbolically stripping down to his underwear and Julius doing the same. They then laugh at each other. The film ends with Paula arriving at the agency, not realizing what she is about to witness. In the office building where Julius works there is an unusual kind of elevator known as a paternoster, consisting of a continuous chain of small elevator cars that move slowly enough for people to step in and out at each floor. This is used to comic effect in the film, with Julius and Stefan having their argument in their underwear in one of the downward-traveling cars, while Paula is coming to see Julius in one of the upward cars. During the credits the crew go past in the cars as their names appear on the screen.

The United States is devastated by a mysterious phenomenon that reanimates recently-dead human beings as flesh-eating zombies. At the dawn of the crisis, it has been reported that millions of people have died and reanimated. Despite the government's best efforts, social order is collapsing. While rural communities have natural barriers, such as Johnstown, and the National Guard have been effective in fighting the zombie hordes in open country, urban centers have descended into chaos. At WGON-TV, a television studio in Philadelphia, traffic reporter Stephen Andrews and his pregnant girlfriend, producer Francine Parker, are planning to steal the station's helicopter to escape the city. Across town, Philadelphia Police Department SWAT officer Roger DeMarco and his team raid a low-income housing project, whose mostly black and Latino tenants are defying the martial law of delivering their dead to the National Guard. The tenants and the officers exchange gunfire as the officers try to gain entry, and indiscriminate attacks by racist officers and the reanimated dead exacerbate the resulting chaos. Roger encounters an officer from another unit, Peter Washington. As the SWAT team successfully dispatch the zombies, a disillusioned Roger suggests that he and Peter desert and join up with Stephen (who is Roger's friend) in escaping the city. Roger and Peter join Fran and Stephen at a police dock and then leave Philadelphia in a stolen WGON-TV news helicopter. Following some close calls while stopping for fuel, the group comes across a shopping mall, and decide to remain there since there is plenty of food, medicine, and all kinds of consumables. Roger, Peter and Stephen camouflage the entrance to the stairwell leading to their safe room and block the mall entrances with trucks to keep the undead from penetrating. This involves driving through crowds of zombies, who attack the trucks. Roger becomes reckless and is soon bitten by the zombies. After clearing the mall of zombies, the group builds a hidden safe room as a fallback in case of future attacks, before settling into a hedonistic lifestyle with all the goods available to them. Roger eventually succumbs to his wounds and dies; when he reanimates, Peter shoots him in the head and buries his body in the mall. Months later, all emergency broadcast transmissions cease, suggesting that the government has collapsed. Now isolated, the three load some supplies into the helicopter, in case they might need to leave suddenly. Fran gets Stephen to teach her how to fly in case he is killed or incapacitated. A nomadic biker gang sees the helicopter in flight and breaks into the mall, destroying the barriers and allowing hundreds of zombies back inside. Despite having a fallback plan should the mall be attacked, Stephen, consumed by territorial rage, takes matters into his own hands by firing on the looters, beginning a protracted battle. On their way out, straggling bikers are overwhelmed and eaten by the zombies. Stephen tries to hide in the elevator shaft, but gets shot and subsequently mauled by roaming zombies. When Stephen reanimates, he instinctively returns to the safe room and leads the undead to Fran and Peter. Peter kills the undead Stephen while Fran escapes to the roof. Peter, not wanting to leave, locks himself in a room and contemplates suicide. When the zombies burst in, he has a change of heart and fights his way up to the roof, where he joins Fran. Having escaped and low on fuel, the two then fly away in the helicopter to an uncertain future.

April Flowers (Michelle Meyrink) is kept away from boys by her overprotective mother (Barbara Harris) because flames have a tendency to spontaneously erupt whenever her hormones are aroused; for April, "protection" on a dinner date is carrying a fire extinguisher. As her mother explains, April is a "fire girl," whose very unstable body chemistry causes spontaneous combustion when she is aroused. As such, the only men April meets more than once are firefighters. When April reconnects with Andy (William O'Leary), a former neighbor who has returned to April's life, he challenges April's and her mother's assumption and presses his luck to prove to her that her hormones are not, in fact, explosive. Hijinks result; as Andy tries to prove his point, he is thwarted at every turn by April's mother. Further complications ensue when April befriends a lonely, obsessive pyromaniac named "Ellen" (Wallace Shawn), who becomes incensed at the constant mishearing of his real name "Ellen" for "Helen," after which he throws Bic lighter flicking snits, trying to set his tormentors ablaze.

A race of diminutive aliens visit Earth at night to gather plant specimens in a California forest. One of them, fascinated by the distant lights of a neighborhood, separates from the group, before U.S. government agents arrive and chase the startled creature. The aliens are forced to depart before the agents can find them, leaving their lone member behind. While the agents search the forest, the creature takes shelter in a shed belonging to the family of ten-year-old Elliott Taylor. Initially scared by the creature, who runs away, Elliott spends the following day leaving a trail of Reese's Pieces to lure the alien back to the Taylors' home, where he hides the creature in his room. The following morning, Elliott feigns illness to stay off school and play with the creature, whom he dubs E.T. Elliott eventually introduces E.T. to his older brother, Michael, and five-year-old sister Gertie, who agree to keep E.T. hidden from their hardworking single mother, Mary. When the children ask about his origins, E.T. displays telekinetic abilities by levitating several balls to represent his planetary system, and later demonstrates other extraordinary abilities by reviving a dead chrysanthemum and instantly healing a cut on Elliott's finger. As Elliott and the creature begin to bond, they start to share thoughts and emotions, the two being simultaneously startled when E.T. accidentally opens an umbrella in a different room. At school, Elliott becomes intoxicated because, at home, E.T. is drinking beer and watching television. Sensing E.T.'s desire to be rescued, Elliott impulsively frees the frogs about to be vivisected in his biology class, inspiring the other children to follow his lead, and romantically kisses a girl he likes because E.T. is watching John Wayne kiss Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man (1952). Elliott is sent to the principal's office for his disruptive behavior. Inspired by a Buck Rogers comic strip, depicting the character calling for help with a communication device, E.T. builds a makeshift device to "phone home", using various parts around the Taylor home. E.T. also learns to speak English, and requests the children's help to build the device. They agree to help find the missing components, unaware that agents are covertly searching for the alien. On Halloween, the children disguise E.T. as a ghost and Elliott sneaks E.T. into the forest, where they set up the device to call E.T.'s people. Elliott begs E.T. to stay on Earth with him, before falling asleep and waking alone in the forest the next day. Elliott returns home to his worried family, while Michael searches for E.T., finding him pale and weakened in a culvert. He takes him home, where Elliott is also growing weaker, and reveals the creature to Mary just before government agents invade and quarantine the house. The lead agent, Keys, asks for Elliott's help to save E.T., stating that meeting aliens was his childhood dream and he considers E.T's arrival a genuine miracle. However, E.T. dies while Elliott rapidly recovers. Left alone to say goodbye, Elliott tells E.T. that he loves him, so E.T.'s heart begins to glow and he is revived and restored to health. E.T. tells Elliott that his people are returning for him. Elliott and Michael flee with E.T. on their bikes, flanked by Michael's friends who help them evade the pursuing authorities. Heading towards a roadblock, E.T. levitates the boys to safety and lands them in the forest. E.T.'s ship arrives, and he says goodbye to Michael and Gertie, who gifts him the chrysanthemum he previously revived. Elliott tearfully asks E.T. to stay, but E.T. places his glowing finger on Elliott's head and tells him that he will always be there. The children, Mary, and Keys observe as the ship blasts off into space, leaving a rainbow in the sky.

On July 21, 1969, a robotic eye emerges from the lunar soil and observes the landing module of the Apollo 11 mission taking off. Twenty years later, the Space Shuttle Camelot encounters a derelict spaceship in orbit around Earth. Mission commander Colonel Jason Grant leaves the Shuttle to investigate. He discovers a reddish-brown pod and a mummified human corpse. Both are brought back to Earth, where it is found that they originated on the Moon some fourteen thousand years ago. Shortly thereafter, the unattended pod comes to life. It constructs a cybernetic body with parts from the lab and pieces of the ancient corpse. The cyborg kills a lab technician and exchanges fire with security guards before Grant destroys it with a shotgun blast to the head. Using the last completed Apollo rocket, Grant and fellow astronaut Ray Tanner go to the Moon on a search-and-destroy mission. They discover the ruins of an ancient human civilization. Inside, they find a woman in suspended animation who identifies herself in a rudimentary fashion as Mera and reveals the name of the killer cyborgs — the Kaalium. They survive a Kaalium attack and return to the Lunar Module, with Mera wearing her own spacesuit, but the module is gone. The Kaalium also shoot down the command module, leaving the astronauts stranded on the Moon. In subsequent attacks by the Kaalium, Tanner is killed while Grant and Mera are taken prisoner. The Kaalium head to Earth in a giant ship with the humans aboard. Grant and Mera free themselves and find the landing module, which has been enmeshed in the ship's machinery. Grant supposes the module was the last piece of equipment that the Kaalium needed to complete their ship. He starts the module's self-destruct sequence before he and Mera exit through a breach in the hull, using his gun's recoil as a propellant. The ship explodes after they have reached safe distance. Some time later, Grant and Mera are shown as a couple living on Earth. Having learned to speak English, Mera explains that she was put in stasis to warn others about the Kaalium. Grant reassures her that the Kaalium have been defeated. Later, a Kaalium pod that survived the explosion is shown in a junkyard preparing to build itself a new body. In a post-credits audio clip, Grant speaks to a NASA official about the possibility of any debris that may have fallen to Earth in the aftermath of the ship's explosion. The official dismisses his concerns and assures Grant that any debris from the alien ship would have burned up in the atmosphere.

The film opens with the text: It is the day after tomorrow. The ultimate nuclear defense system has been perfected. Security has been achieved. Global conflict is now unthinkable. Day 407 of the Nemesis Mission as three astronauts man a secret space station armed with nuclear weapons. World tensions are rising after a United States transport ship secretly transporting nuclear Tomahawk missiles was hijacked by Libyan terrorists. News reports indicate one of the nuclear missiles landed but did not explode in a Soviet city. Shortly afterwards, the crew lose all contact with the ground with news reports mentioning nuclear explosions in several Soviet cities, presumably from the stolen nuclear missiles. They observe what appears to be a nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union on Earth. A month later, the crew continues to hold out for hope of survivors and debate what they should do. Cecil Howe (Tim Choate) receives a broadcast from his wife whose rural community escaped the initial bombing. Unable to respond, he listens as his wife describes how many residents, including his sister, were blinded by the nuclear explosion. How radiation sickness is ravaging the survivors, that she is sick, and their infant child has also died. Two months later, the spacecraft's guidance system is mysteriously reprogrammed, forcing the crew's return to Earth. The crew set their remaining nuclear payload to explode in 60 hours and all but one missile properly jettisons. The spacecraft lands considerably off-course, on a beach in eastern Nova Scotia, Canada. Eva Jordan (Kate Lynch) is knocked unconscious on impact. Hearing knocking on the capsule, Howe and Walker (John Walsch) attempt to dig out believing they have been found by survivors. However, Walker is quickly pulled out and eaten by the "terminals": humans crazed by radiation poisoning and starvation. Several hours later, Howe leaves a message for a still unconscious Jordan and ventures out in search of help. He soon encounters Vincent "Vinny" Mckinnon (Maury Chaykin), a survivalist who has fortified his house with barbed wire and booby-traps. Howe attempts to use the four months supply of food in the capsule as a bargaining chip. He then meets Jacelyn "J.J." Jameson (Lenore Zann) who is being kept prisoner by Vinny. Using an armor-plated tractor, the group heads back to the beach to find the capsule but are ambushed by survivors from a nearby military fort. Both the capsule and the group are taken to the fort that is being run by Gideon Hayes, (Kevin King) J.J's boyfriend and son of a high-ranking naval officer. While attempting to flee to a government shelter, the group's helicopter is taken out by an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from the nuclear explosions. The only survivors are Gideon, J.J., Marine Corporal Lacey, and Boomer who is a Navy technician paralyzed by the crash. Using satellite equipment taken from the helicopter, it was Boomer who was able to force Howe's space station to crash at the beach. By using equipment from the salvaged capsule, Gideon finds an active survival station to seek shelter from the radiation and fallout covering the globe. Gideon estimates that everyone in the area will be dead in two months when the winds blow denser fallout clouds to the area. The following morning Gideon places Howe, Jordan, Vinny, and J.J. through a kangaroo court. All are found guilty by unanimous vote and sentenced to hang. As they prepare for the hanging, Boomer has crawled to the stand and plans to use a revolver to shoot Gideon. Howe bluffs to have his life spared in exchange for pulling the lever to hang the others. During the ensuing chaos, Howe is able to escape while Boomer is killed. Jordan is released to treat Gideon's gunshot wound and negotiates the release of the others. Jordan tries to murder Gideon but gets killed in the process. Howe uses Vinny's armored tractor to free Vinny and arms the camp's prisoners. Gideon, Lacey, and J.J. try to escape on a sailboat while Howe swims after them. During the ensuing fight, Gideon and Lacey are thrown overboard. Both return to the camp to find most of the inhabitants have been killed with only a dozen guards left. Gideon points at the capsule's nuclear silo and asks "Wait, shouldn't all of those be empty?" As the timer reaches zero, Howe, Vinny, and J.J. observe the nuclear explosion from their sailboat now out at sea. The sailboat floating in the ocean fades as text on the screen reads: The final victory has been won. Mankind can now rest in peace.

A young boy is setting fire to newspapers in the basement. His name is Mikey and he has a younger sister, Beth, whom he blames for the fire when his foster mother admonishes Mikey. When Mikey is disciplined by his foster mother for starting the fire, he responds by causing Beth to drown in the pool, electrocuting his foster mother while she is in the bath, and bludgeoning his foster father to death with a baseball bat. Mikey avoids suspicion because he is only nine and he tells the police that an intruder killed the family. Detective Reynolds is assigned to the case and he does not suspect Mikey. A psychiatrist recommends that Mikey get fostered as soon as possible. His foster mother's sister is put forward as a prospective foster carer, but she does not want anything to do with Mikey. She states that he was adopted and that it was suspected that he was abused by members of his family. He is then sent to a new family, Neil and Rachel Trenton, who do not know anything about Mikey's past. Presenting himself as an amiable and loving child, his behavior does not raise red flags. He also manifests behavior which is not out of the ordinary in his desire to succeed in a game at school. Mikey then falls in love with his new best friend Ben's older sister, Jessie, who is 10 years older than Mikey. She is not interested in him and is dating a boy named David. In an attempt to make Jessie love him, Mikey kills Jessie's cat and places it under David's car to make it appear as though David was responsible. Tension arises in the relationship but Jessie forgives him. Mikey electrocutes David while he is in a Jacuzzi by kicking the radio in the water. After this fails and he is found out by his foster mother, he fatally stabs her with a glass shard. He kills his school's principal and teacher with a bow and arrow and slingshot when they arrive shortly afterward to investigate their suspicions, and unsuccessfully tries to shoot Jessie with a bow. To avoid being blamed, Mikey fakes his own death. He stages a skeleton of a boy the same age as him taken from his classroom at the dining table and then blows up the house with a gas leak and Molotov cocktail when his foster dad arrives home to find everyone dead around the table. Jessie is told by the authorities that Mikey is dead. Later, Mikey, going by the name "Josh," is adopted by another family.

A young boy is in a car with an older man being pursued by unknown forces. The man tells him to get out the car, and the car crashes off a cliff. The boy wanders the forest barely aware of his surroundings. He is subsequently discovered by Mr. and Mrs. Bergen, an elderly couple, and taken to an orphanage in Barkenton, South Carolina. However, he has no memory of his true identity or why he was in the woods and only knows his name is Daryl. After being placed with his foster parents, Joyce and Andy Richardson, Daryl begins to exhibit exceptional talents. Daryl's social skills are limited due to his isolated upbringing, but he befriends Turtle Fox, his sarcastic and wisecracking neighbor. Daryl shares that he has amnesia and hopes his real parents will find him someday. As Daryl observes Turtle playing the video game Pole Position, he effortlessly outperforms him, displaying superhuman abilities. He also does well in school, shocking a stern teacher by correctly correcting another student's work before being given the answers when asked to swap papers. Joyce begins to feel disheartened, however, as Daryl, despite being pleasant, irons his own clothes, makes his own bed, and doesn't seem to need anything from her. Andy decides to teach Daryl social skills through baseball, where Daryl excels, hitting multiple home runs and impressing everyone except Joyce, who is not unkind but uninterested when Daryl excitedly tells her mid-game. Daryl wonders if he has hurt her somehow. Turtle advises Daryl he is too perfect and to let Joyce help him a bit. Daryl then deliberately messes up the game and yells about it, allowing Joyce to comfort him. Turtle laments sarcastically that was it was a bit extreme to throw the game, but Daryl is happy. Daryl gradually grows closer to his family and Turtle and loosens up, becoming more emotive. Daryl also demonstrates his advanced capabilities when he helps Andy rectify an issue with an ATM and manipulates it to put more than one million dollars into his foster father's account. During a baseball game, government agents Dr. Stewart and Dr. Lamb locate Daryl and present themselves as his real parents. They are surprised when the Richardsons show fondness for Daryl and say he is nervous to meet his parents. Andy has an emotional farewell in private where he encourages Daryl, who does not wish to leave, to give his parents a chance. After Daryl leaves, the Richardsons express doubt as to how unconcerned Daryl's “parents” seemed about him. Dr. Stewart and Dr. Lamb reveal who they really are to Daryl as they return him to the TASCOM facility in Washington, D.C., where his memory is restored. His name, Daryl, is an acronym for "Data-Analyzing Robot Youth Lifeform." Daryl is an artificial intelligence experiment created by a government company called TASCOM. Physically resembling a human boy, Daryl's brain is actually a highly advanced microcomputer with extraordinary abilities, including exceptional reflexes, multitasking skills, and the ability to hack computer systems. The experiment was intended to produce a super-soldier and was funded by the military, but one of the scientists involved in the project, Dr. Mulligan, became disillusioned and decided to free Daryl. Pursued by a helicopter, Dr. Mulligan sacrificed himself to ensure Daryl's escape, driving his car off a cliff. Daryl undergoes debriefing, and his past actions with his foster family are analyzed. He is questioned about why he threw the game, and he reveals it was to relate to others. The scientists are also surprised at his new range of emotions which he was not programmed for. Dr. Stewart is amazed while Dr. Lamb insists on referring to Daryl as it and says “it” is merely learning to copy behavior. Dr. Stewart, realizing he misses them, allows Andy, Joyce, and Turtle to visit over Dr. Lamb's protests. They manage to convince them of Daryl's true nature, and it is revealed that his capacity for human emotions has led the project to be labeled a failure, leading to the decision to terminate him. Dr. Jeffrey Stewart, one of Daryl's creators, helps him escape, assisted by Dr. Lamb, who now questions Daryl's true nature. Daryl and Dr. Stewart evade their pursuers with Daryl's driving skills. However, the next day, while trying to escape a roadblock, Dr. Stewart is shot and later dies from his injuries. That night, Daryl sneaks onto a military base and steals a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Daryl contacts Turtle, instructing him and his sister Sherie Lee Fox to meet him at Blue Lake, a familiar location. The Air Force attempts to intercept the plane but fails. Daryl ejects at the last moment to fake his death while the plane is destroyed. However, he lands unconscious in the lake and drowns. Daryl's body is rushed to the hospital but shows no signs of life. Dr. Lamb discovers Daryl and reactivates his electronic brain, reviving him. With Daryl now declared dead, he is no longer pursued by TASCOM. He joyfully reunites with his foster family, bringing happiness to everyone, including Turtle, who believed Daryl could not die since he is a robot.

The film opens with a pre-taped sketch depicting a scene from Murphy's childhood. At a family Thanksgiving in November 1968, the children take turns showing their talents to the assembled relatives (including one played by Murphy himself). Young Eddie (Deon Richmond) shocks the family with a rude joke about a monkey and a lion. While the rest of the adults are shocked, his aunt and uncle are delighted and the uncle (Samuel L. Jackson) proclaims, "I love that doo-doo line. That boy's got talent!" After emerging on stage for the live show, Murphy begins by discussing the angry reactions of celebrities parodied in his previous stand-up show, Delirious, specifically Mr. T and Michael Jackson, as well as homosexual viewers offended by his jokes about " faggots." Murphy then narrates a phone call he received from Bill Cosby chastising him for using profanity on stage. Angered by Cosby's assumption that his entire act was nothing but "filth flarn filth," Murphy calls Richard Pryor for advice. Pryor declares that his only concerns should be making audiences laugh and getting paid, and recommends that he tell Cosby to " Have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up." Murphy elaborates on his admiration for the "raw" comedy of Pryor, running through a routine from his own teenage years about defecation, in Pryor's voice. He then goes on to talk about how people who don't speak English only pick up the curse words in his act, and shout them at him on the street. Next comes a lengthy routine about dating and relationships. Murphy explains that the rise of deadly sexually transmitted infections has motivated him to seek marriage, but the divorce of Johnny Carson and Joanna Holland (in which she sought 50% of his assets) has left him paranoid about the financial risk of marriage, concluding that "no pussy is worth $150 million." He mocks the aggression and materialism of American women (compared to his belief in the meekness of Japanese women), referring to the popularity of Janet Jackson 's song " What Have You Done for Me Lately." He jokes that he intends to go deep into Africa to find a "bush bitch" who has no concept of Western culture... at least until American women convince her to stand up for herself and demand "HALF!" This develops into a broader warning to men to avoid "the pussy trap," and a warning to women that men never remain faithful — once a man has evoked a powerful orgasm from a woman ("ooohhhh!") she will tolerate all kinds of misbehavior, although she may pursue infidelity of her own. The next segment narrates a childhood memory of his mother promising to cook him a hamburger "better than McDonald's," only to produce an unappealing "big, welfare, green-pepper burger," a lump of beef filled with onion and green peppers on Wonder Bread (while the neighborhood children show off their McDonald's hamburgers in a call-back to the ice cream segment of Delirious), but he states that as an adult, he has more of an appreciation of the tastiness of his mom's homemade dish. Murphy then talks about white people out on the town, criticizing their embarrassing dance moves, leading onto Italian-Americans being inspired by Rocky, then culminates to a bit about fighting in a discotheque with Deney Terrio, eventually starting a large-scale brawl after which "everybody sued me" for millions of dollars. After the fight, Murphy calls his parents, leading to a long impression of his drunken stepfather (another call-back to a popular bit from Delirious). This final segment runs for over ten minutes and incorporates his stepfather's habit of misquoting Motown songs (including "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", which opened the film).