On August 12, 2011, hostile alien spacecraft make landings off the coasts of large cities. Los Angeles is evacuated while Marines from Camp Pendleton arrive, including Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz, an Iraq War veteran. Nantz, who was to begin his retirement, is assigned to the 1st Platoon, Echo Company, of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines. Under the command of 2nd Lieutenant William Martinez, the platoon arrives at a forward operating base (FOB) established at Santa Monica Airport. The alien ground forces have no apparent air support while using rapid dominance. Hence, the Air Force prepares a carpet bombing of the Santa Monica area, and the platoon is given 3 hours to retrieve civilians from a police station. As they advance through Los Angeles, they are ambushed and suffer multiple casualties. Nantz takes Marines Imlay and Harris to look for Lenihan, who is missing from the group. After fighting off an alien, they team up with some soldiers from the Army's 40th Infantry Division and an Air Force intelligence technical sergeant, Elena Santos. At the police station, the makeshift platoon finds five civilians: veterinarian Michele, children Kirsten, Amy, Hector, and Hector's father Joe. A helicopter arrives to evacuate wounded Marines but cannot take on the weight of the civilians. During takeoff, it is destroyed by alien air units, killing Grayston, Guerrero, Lenihan, and Simmons. The Marines commandeer an abandoned transit bus for the evacuation. En route, they deduce that the alien air units are drones that target human radio transmissions; Santos reveals that her mission is to locate and destroy the aliens' command center controlling the drones. When their bus comes under attack by aliens on an elevated freeway, the Marines rappel the group to street level. In the ensuing battle, Marines Stavrou and Mottola and the remainder of the California Army National Guard soldiers are killed, while both Joe and Lieutenant Martinez are wounded. Martinez uses his radio to attract the aliens, then detonates explosives, sacrificing himself for his team. Nantz is now in command of surviving personnel Santos, Imlay, Kerns, Lockett, Harris, Adukwu, and the civilians, continuing their escape from the bombing zone. A scientist speculates on news media that the aliens seek Earth's water resources for fuel while exterminating the human population. The planned carpet bombing fails to materialize. Reaching the FOB, the Marines find it destroyed, and the military retreats from the city. The Marines plan to escort the civilians to an alternate extraction point. When Joe dies from his wounds, Nantz comforts Hector. Lockett confronts Nantz regarding his brother, a Marine who, with four others, was killed during Nantz's last tour. They come to peace when Nantz explains that he continues to think of them and recites each one's name, rank, and serial number. Nantz motivates the group to move forward to honor their fallen comrades, including Joe, for his bravery. They reach the extraction point and evacuate by helicopter. In flight, the chopper experiences a brief loss of power. Nantz theorizes that they are flying near the alien command center, transmitting intense radio messages to its drones. He orders his unit to accompany the civilians while he stays to reconnoiter the area, but his marines join him. Searching through sewers, they confirm the presence of a large alien vessel. Kerns radios to request missiles, which Nantz manually directs using a laser designator while the others defend his position. Kerns is killed when a drone hones in on his radio, but the Marines succeed in guiding a missile to the command module, which is destroyed. The uncontrolled drones fall from the sky, and the alien ground forces retreat. The remaining marines—Nantz, Imlay, Lockett, Harris, Adukwu, and Santos—are evacuated to a base in the Mojave Desert, greeted as heroes. They are told that their successful plan has been transmitted to the militaries battling alien forces in other cities, that Michele and the three children were rescued, and that they can now rest. Instead, they re-arm and depart to retake Los Angeles.

The diminutive Agent 00, the number 1 agent from the Secret Agency, is provided with a number of new hi-tech gadgets from his boss, and then sent to stop the mysterious warlord Mr. Giant, who has just kidnapped Dr. Kohler, a foreign scientist visiting Manila to offer his latest invention, the N-Bomb, to the government. Mr. Giant intends to use the lethal weapon to take over the world, but Agent 00 is ready to stop him. He can count on the help of Irma, a fellow agent who has infiltrated Mr. Giant's criminal organization, working for the drug traffickers that are headed by a gangster named Cobra. This leads to many battles between Agent 00 and the villain's henchmen. Once Irma's cover is blown, she is taken prisoner as a bait and sent to Mr. Kaiser, Mr. Giant's second-in-command, who keeps her in his lair. In order to find Kaiser, Agent 00 enlists the help of other Bond girl types, such as night club enthusiast Anna and criminal reporter Marilyn, romancing his way to their allegiance. After flushing out and killing criminal bosses of increasing importance, and all of their henchmen, Agent 00 reaches Kaiser, but by then Irma has been shipped to Hidden Island, Mr. Giant's super-secret lair. After finding the secret location of the island, Agent 00 uses a prototype size-compatible jet pack to get there, and calls for reinforcements. He confronts and kills Mr. Giant himself (who is revealed to be a dwarf himself, although taller than Agent 00), then along with the squad of agents from the Secret Agency, Agent 00 and Irma clean the island of all remaining henchmen. However, right after a freed Dr. Kohler has finally reached safety, Irma is shot and killed. In the final scene, Agent 00 is seen paying respect on her tomb.

In 1996 Brooklyn, Molly Wright witnesses her parents being neuralyzed by agents of Men in Black after they see an alien in their home. Molly helps the alien escape, avoiding neuralyzation herself. Twenty-three years later, rejected from government agencies due to her "delusions" regarding alien life, Molly tracks down an alien landing and follows MIB agents to their headquarters in New York City. Caught entering the agency, Molly makes an impression on Agent O after revealing she had bypassed neuralyzation, arguing that her obsessive search for them makes her "perfect" for the job and she has no life outside her search for the agency. She is awarded probationary agent status as "Agent M" and assigned to the organization's London branch. There, M meets High T, head of the London branch, and Agent H. M learns that H and T fought off an invasion of the Hive, a parasitic race who invade planets by merging with the DNA of the conquered species, at the Eiffel Tower in 2016, using a wormhole included in the original migration to Earth. H has since become unconcerned with his duties and only keeping his job due to High T covering for him. M arranges for herself to be assigned to assist H in his meeting with alien royalty Vungus the Ugly, H's close friend. During their night out with Vungus, they are accosted by mysterious alien Twins able to manifest as pure energy. The Twins fatally injure Vungus, who gives M a strange crystal before he dies, claiming that H has changed since they last met and cannot be trusted. M points out that few people knew Vungus' location, and he was likely betrayed by one of the agents present when High T assigned H to guard him. Nervous at the possibility of a traitor within MIB, High T assigns Agents C and M to investigate while H is demoted to desk duty, with evidence suggesting that the Twins had DNA traces of the Hive. H convinces M to join him in following a lead to Marrakesh, where they recover "Pawny", the last survivor of a small group of aliens attacked by the Twins. Pawny pledges loyalty to M, and they are trapped by MIB agents coordinated by C, who recovered video footage of Vungus passing the crystal to M and believes she is the traitor. With the aid of alien contacts Nasr and Bassam, H escapes with M and Pawny on a rocket-powered bike, and they learn that Vungus' crystal is a weapon powered by a compressed blue giant. As they repair the damaged bike, Bassam steals the weapon and takes it to H's ex-girlfriend Riza Stavros, an alien arms dealer. Traveling to Riza's island fortress, the trio attempts to infiltrate the base, but is caught by Riza and her bodyguard Luca Brasi. Luca, the alien M rescued as a child, returns the favor by allowing them to leave with the weapon while he keeps Riza contained. The three are cornered by the Twins, who are killed by High T and a group of agents. Although the case appears concluded, H and M review the evidence and realize that the Twins' phrases suggest they required the weapon to use against the Hive, especially when the only evidence of Hive DNA was provided by High T. They discover High T has deleted the case file and not sent the weapon to evidence, and has gone to the Eiffel Tower with the weapon. C also realizes High T's deception and allows H and M to follow High T to the Eiffel Tower. As they travel to the reopened wormhole, M's questioning of H's memory of the Hive's defeat reveals he was neuralyzed when the Hive converted T into one of their own during the battle. The High T/Hive hybrid activates a wormhole to draw the Hive to Earth, but H draws out High T's true personality long enough for M, with the help of Pawny, to use the weapon at full capacity to destroy both the hybrid and the Hive infestation trying to reach Earth. With the truth of T's conversion exposed, Agent O joins H and M in Paris, where she grants M full agent status and appoints H probationary head of MIB's London branch.

Gregorio and Ingrid Cortez are spies with two children, Carmen and Juni, whom they shield from their lives to protect them from inherent danger. They work for the Organization of Super Spies (OSS) doing office consultant work, but are suddenly called back to active field work to find missing agents. Gregorio suspects children's television host Fegan Floop has kidnapped them, mutating them into his "Fooglies" – creatures on his show, a program that Juni avidly watches. The children are left in the care of their uncle, Felix Gumm. Gregorio and Ingrid are captured by Floop's "Thumb-Thumbs" (robots whose arms, legs, and heads resemble oversized thumbs) and taken to his castle. Felix is alerted to the parents' capture, activates the fail-safe, and tells the children the truth about their parents, and that he is not their uncle, but an agent sent to watch over them. The house is attacked by Ninja Thumb-Thumbs, and Felix is captured while the children escape alone via a miniature submarine set to autopilot to a safe house. At the safe house, the children accept that their parents were spies and decide to rescue them. Inside Floop's castle, he introduces his latest creation, small child-shaped robots, to Mr. Lisp. They plan to replace the world leaders' children with these super-strong robots to control the world, but since the androids have no artificial intelligence yet, they are unable to function outside their regular programming. Lisp is furious, demanding usable androids. Floop, with his second-in-command Alexander Minion, interrogates Gregorio and Ingrid about 'The Third Brain'. Ingrid knows nothing of it, while Gregorio claims he had destroyed the brain years ago. After Floop leaves, Gregorio reveals to Ingrid that the Third Brain was a secret OSS project he had worked on: an AI brain with all the skills of the entire OSS. The project was scrapped for being too dangerous, and many scientists demolished the brains that they were working on, but Gregorio refused to destroy the final prototype. At the safe house, Carmen and Juni are visited by OSS agent Ms. Gradenko. Giving Carmen a bracelet as a sign of trust, she asks about the Third Brain, but Carmen is confused. Gradenko orders the house to be dismantled, and the siblings realize Gradenko is a traitor when they see ninja Thumb-Thumbs destroying the escape submarine. With Gradenko's intentions revealed, Juni accidentally exposes the Third Brain, and a chase ensues. Carmen gets the brain, and she and Juni escape. She realizes too late that the bracelet from Gradenko has a tracking device, and she and Juni are attacked by their robot counterparts, who steal the Third Brain and fly away. Meanwhile, back at the castle, Gregorio tells Ingrid that Minion used to work for the OSS, but was fired after he reported him tampering with the Third Brain project. With it, Floop can achieve his goal, but he wishes to continue his children's TV show. Minion has different plans and takes over, locking Floop inside his "virtual room", the chamber where he films his television series. Carmen and Juni receive reluctant help from Gregorio's estranged brother Isador "Machete" Cortez when they show up at his spy shop. He refuses to accompany them, so they steal some gear and take his spy jet to fly to Floop's castle. After a few mishaps, Carmen and Juni eject themselves from the plane before it crashes into the castle, and they enter via the underwater entrance. While the children infiltrate the castle, Juni rescues Floop, who helps him and Carmen release their parents. Together, they trap Minion in Floop's Fooglies machine, mutating him into a Fooglie. Confronting Lisp and Gradenko, the family is beset by all 500 robot children. Suddenly, Machete busts through the window, reconciling with Gregorio and joining the family to fight. However, at the last moment, Floop reprograms the robots to change sides. The 500 superhuman robots quickly overpower Minion, Lisp, and Gradenko. With advice from Juni, Floop introduces the robot versions of Carmen and Juni on his show. At home, some time later, the family's breakfast is interrupted by Devlin, the head of the OSS, with a mission for Carmen and Juni. The children tell him they will only accept if all the Cortezes can work on the mission together as a family.

In 1982, Sam Brenner and his friends Will Cooper and Ludlow "The Wonder Kid" Lamonsoff play at an amusement arcade together before Brenner participates in a video game championship, where he seemingly loses a Donkey Kong match to Eddie "The Fireblaster" Plant. Videotaped footage of the event is put in a time capsule that gets launched into outer space. In the present, Brenner, now an electronics installer, is summoned alongside lieutenant colonel Violet van Patten to the White House, where Cooper, now President of the United States, shows surveillance footage of a besiegement at the Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. Brenner notes the attack's resemblance to the game Galaga, but Admiral James Porter of the United States Navy strongly advocates against its inference in the case. Brenner meets up with Lamonsoff, who reveals the attack was caused by an alien force that mistook the time capsule's footage as a declaration of war and are now challenging Earth to a best-of-three battle using technological recreations of the championship's games, claiming they have won the first match. Brenner and Lamonsoff inform Cooper of a coordinated aim at India, but he dismisses their concerns. After the aliens win the second match by demolishing the Taj Mahal as Arkanoid, Brenner and Lamonsoff train Navy SEALs to play the games while van Patten develops effective rayguns. Calling themselves the "Arcaders", the team heads to London, where the aliens attack Hyde Park as Centipede before being repelled by Brenner and Lamonsoff. Cooper, Lamonsoff and Brenner recruit a convicted Eddie to assist in New York City, where the Arcaders battle a giant Pac-Man in Mini Coopers representing the ghosts. After Brenner defeats Pac-Man, the Arcaders receive Q*bert as a trophy. During a celebration at the White House however, the aliens announce that one of the Arcaders has cheated, meaning Earth forfeits the challenge. Before being abducted by the aliens, van Patten's son Matty discovers Eddie cheated in the fight against Pac-Man using a code written on his glasses, which he also used in the 1982 video game championship. The aliens attack Washington, D.C. with an army of 1980s video game characters. With Cooper and a repentant Eddie's help, the Arcaders fight through the onslaught while Lamonsoff persuades Lady Lisa, a video game character whom he has a crush on, to join them. Brenner, Violet, Will and Q*bert are summoned to the aliens' mother ship for a final chance to save Earth by facing the aliens' leader as Donkey Kong. The group is placed on the game's starting level, with Donkey Kong and the captives at the top level. Struggling against the obstacles, Brenner loses hope until Matty reveals Eddie's cheating. Realizing he actually is the world's best Donkey Kong player, Brenner regains his spirit and defeats Donkey Kong, resulting in the aliens' forces, including Lisa, being neutralized. The Arcaders are hailed as heroes as Will negotiates a peace agreement with the aliens. Eddie apologizes to Brenner for cheating and acknowledges him as the best Donkey Kong player. Seeing Ludlow devastated over Lisa's termination, Q*bert cheers him up by shapeshifting into her. Brenner and van Patten begin a relationship, Eddie meets Serena Williams and Martha Stewart as he requested and the aliens return to their home planet.

In the year 2017, the United States has fragmented into post-apocalyptic wastelands with a few civilized areas. An ongoing economic crisis has led to the recycling of aging 20th-century mechanical and technological equipment. Society has also become averse to intimacy, as well as both increasingly hypersexualized and bureaucratic. Robotic technology has produced gynoids as substitutes for wives. The declining instances of actual sex among men and women is litigious, with one brothel having lawyers draft up contracts detailing the intended sexual rendezvous. Recycling executive Sam Treadwell owns a Cherry 2000 model as his wife. After she short circuits during sex on a wet kitchen floor, Sam is told by a repairman that she is damaged beyond repair, though her rare and valuable memory disk, which contains her entire personality, can be used in a new body if the same model can be found. A gynoid dealer tells Sam that the Cherry 2000 model is no longer produced and that the only remaining ones are in a defunct warehouse in "Zone 7", a particularly dangerous, lawless area. With Cherry's memory disk stored in a device that plays back Cherry's voice, Sam hires Edith "E" Johnson, a tough tracker, to guide him to the factory. They set off in Edith's heavily modified 1965 Ford Mustang. Entering Zone 7, they encounter Lester, a wasteland overlord with deranged subordinates. Edith and Sam take refuge in an underground reservoir occupied by Six-Fingered Jake, an elderly tracker who was Edith's mentor. When Lester's men attack, the three attempt to escape, but Sam is knocked unconscious and taken to a 1950s-styled motel/village. Ginger, one of Lester's gang, reveals herself as Sam's ex-girlfriend, previously known as Elaine. Lester decides to induct Sam into the group, and Sam, believing that Edith and Jake are dead, goes along for a while. When he witnesses the group sadistically murdering a tracker, Sam decides to escape and runs into Edith and Jake, still quite alive. Jake, who had earlier led Sam to believe that the Cherry 2000 memory disk had been lost, still has it and gives it to Edith while he stays behind to draw off Lester's gang. Sam, a veteran of earlier wars, shows that he is a capable fighter, and Edith begins to have feelings for him. Sam's own growing feelings toward Edith, though, are derailed when he hears Cherry's voice accidentally play on the audio device. Continuing to work their way to the gynoid warehouse, they arrive at a brothel/gas station owned by Snappy Tom, a friend of Jake's, where a dilapidated Aeronca Champion light airplane is stored. Edith repairs the plane using parts from the Mustang. Jake catches up with the group and reminisces with Snappy Tom, but Snappy's live-in girlfriend betrays their location to Lester over the radio and shoots Jake in the back. Edith and Sam manage to escape in the plane. Sam is almost ready to abandon the quest, but Edith is determined to complete her job as a tracker so Jake's death will not become meaningless. As they land, Zone 7 is revealed to be actually the abandoned ruins of Las Vegas and the gynoid "warehouse" is actually a casino. Sam finally finds a functional Cherry 2000 model and activates her with the memory disk; however, being programmed only for home life and sex, the robot is incapable of adapting to the current dangerous situation when Lester and his gang attack. In an extended battle, Sam, Edith, and Cherry climb aboard the airplane, but their combined weight prevents takeoff. Edith jumps out so that Sam and the robot can escape, but Sam realizes that Cherry cannot provide the human interaction that he and Edith have had and turns the plane around. Cherry, programmed to fulfill Sam's wishes, offers to bring him a Pepsi, so he sends her away as he and Edith fight off Lester's gang and take off in the plane. When Lester tries to lasso the plane, he gets caught in the rope and hangs himself from one of the ancient Las Vegas neon casino signs. Edith and Sam kiss as they fly away into the sunset.

Bob Munro, an executive at the large soda company Pure Vibe, struggles with the whims of his self-absorbed boss Todd Mallory. His family — materialistic wife Jamie and their teenage children, sharp-tongued Cassie and self-confident Carl — are also demanding, and he had promised them a vacation in Hawaii. During an event Todd hosted, Cassie's friend Gretchen insults Todd and stains his suit with a soda. Todd, who sought to acquire the Alpine Soda company in Boulder, Colorado, blames Bob for the incident and threatens to fire him if he does not promote the takeover. Todd's demand forces the Munros to cancel their vacation. Bob, concealing the real reason for not going to Hawaii, rents an RV and tells his family that they are traveling to the Rockies; he plans to make a detour in Colorado to secretly attend the meeting in Boulder. The trip is marked by numerous mishaps. Bob's inexperience in handling the large vehicle results in him colliding with various obstacles and damaging the parking brake. During a stopover in Nevada, he must fix an unsavory clog in the toilet tank. The family also fumigates the RV with stink bombs to drive out intrusive raccoons. During the trip, the Munros have several encounters with the Gornickes, a good-natured but exhausting family who live in their own RV, consisting of dad Travis, mobile sales rep and cosmetologist mom Mary Jo, and their three children, Earl, Moon, and Billy. As they approach Colorado, Carl tries playing basketball with some older boys, but Bob makes it awkward and embarrasses him. The two go for a walk in the woods and somehow bond over the future of Carl's heavyweight career. Later, the Munros reconnect as a family and enjoy the beauty of their surroundings. Nearing Boulder, Bob fakes an upset stomach and sends the rest of the family on a hike before meeting with the Alpine Soda owners. The meeting is promising, but on the way back, Bob gets stuck in a traffic jam, forcing him to take the RV through a treacherous four-wheel-drive trail; he returns to his family with a badly battered vehicle. Todd calls Bob and demands that he return the next day to repeat the presentation to the entire Alpine Soda staff. However, the RV's parking brake fails again and sends it rolling into a mountain lake. Bob is forced to confess the true purpose of the trip to his family, explaining that he fears losing his job and their standard of living. Taken aback, the family refuses to accompany him, leaving him to make his way to the meeting alone on a bike recovered from the RV. The Gornickes appear and pick up the Munros. Along the way, the two families bond; Bob spots them together from a distance on the road. Deciding his family is more important than his job, he catches up to them and reconciles with everyone. In return, the Gornickes drive him the rest of the way to the meeting. At the Alpine Soda headquarters, Bob begins to pitch the takeover to the staff; halfway through, he has an epiphany and encourages their independence, aware that Todd would ruin the brand. In retaliation, Todd fires Bob; Carl angrily throws to the ground and tackles him, making him a hero. Then Bob retorts that he quits anyway. On their way home in the sodden and battered RV, the Munros are stopped by a police officer on behalf of the Alpine Soda owners, who offer Bob a job overseeing their company's expansion. The RV's parking brake fails again, flattening the police car and the Alpine Soda company owners' car. During the credits, the two families are shown dancing and singing along to " Route 66 ".

In 2063, astrophysicists on a climate change –ravaged Earth find a habitable planet. A scouting mission is sent, although the roughly 86-year flight means that only some of the original crew, expanded with their children and grandchildren, will reach the planet. The 30-person launch crew are bred on Earth through in vitro fertilisation (IVF) using genius donors, and live their infancy and childhood in isolation in order to help cope with spending their remaining lives mostly in flight. To shorten the wait for news back to Earth, the 30 are launched as preadolescents on the spaceship Humanitas; they are joined by adult program commander Richard, to guide them through the journey's early stage. The plan is for IVF to be performed when the crew turns 24, to be repeated on those offspring when they turn 24. During the tenth year of the flight, Christopher and Zac discover a chemical is added to everyone's food that suppresses the sex drive and pleasure response, keeping them docile and manageable. The pair stop taking the chemical, with their surging hormones driving them to become competitive, careless, and anxious to engage in sexual relations. Their crewmate Sela, who has trained as chief medical officer, is assaulted by one of the boys, which distresses female members of the crew as well as Richard. During a repair effort outside the Humanitas to address a failed Earth communication system, Richard is killed and a fire damages more ship systems. Christopher is voted the new chief officer, which upsets Zac, who then tells the others to stop ingesting the chemical. The mission descends into madness as many of the young men and women revert to their most primal state. A power hungry Zac tells the weak minded others that an alien killed Richard, and he will protect them, letting them eat all the (closely conserved) food they want. He convinces all but five to follow him rather than Christopher. Christopher and Sela, who have become a couple, find and repair a video disk that reveals Zac killed Richard and precipitated the further systems damage by turning on the electricity to the communications array while Richard was working on it. They show the others, but Zac convinces many that an alien is inhabiting one of them, which leads his followers to murder one of their own. Christopher inadvertently leads Zac to a weapons cache for their grandchildren to use on the planet. Three of the holdouts join Zac's mob, leaving only Christopher, Sela, and Phoebe to oppose Zac. One of Zac's mob kills Phoebe, but Sela kills him in return. She and Christopher eject Zac into space, and his followers acquiesce to living peacefully. Sela is voted chief officer. The crew permanently forgoes the suppression chemical and learn to manage their emotions. They fall in love and have children naturally rather than via the planned IVF. After another 76 years, Humanitas and its multi-generational crew arrive at the planet, which appears from orbit to be as Earth-like as hoped.

After witnessing crime lord Eddie Kim brutally murder prosecutor Daniel Hayes in a secluded forest in Hawaii, Sean Jones is escorted by FBI agents Neville Flynn and John Sanders on a Boeing 747-400 to testify in a trial against Kim in Los Angeles. Kim arranges for a time-release crate full of venomous snakes to be placed in the cargo hold in an attempt to bring down the plane before it reaches Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). To ensure the snakes indiscriminately attack everybody without the need for provocation, he has one of his henchmen disguised as an airport ground employee spray the passengers' leis with a special pheromone which makes the snakes highly aggressive. The crate opens midway through the flight and the snakes make their way through the cabin, with a viper attacking an electric panel in the process, thus shutting down the power. A cat in the cargo bay, a couple having sex in a bathroom, and a man using another bathroom are the first ones to be killed. The plane's captain, Sam McKeon, investigates the power outage and fixes an electrical short, but is killed by the viper that caused it. Co-pilot Rick, unaware of the snakes, believes Sam has suffered a heart attack and continues toward LAX. Some snakes attack Rick, and while fending them off, he accidentally releases the oxygen masks throughout the plane, causing most of the snakes to drop into the cabin with them. Numerous passengers, including Agent Sanders, are killed when the snakes invade the cabin. The surviving passengers, who have made their way to the front of the plane, put up blockades of luggage in a desperate attempt to stop the snakes. Rick is attacked and the plane starts to descend, causing a food trolley to crash through the luggage blockade. The passengers flee to the upstairs first-class cabin before blocking the stairwell with an inflatable life raft. Flynn and flight attendant Claire regain control of the plane while Rick retakes the controls and has Flynn go into the cargo hold to restore the air conditioning/ventilation system. Flynn contacts FBI special agent Hank Harris on the ground, who gets in touch with ophiologist Dr. Steven Price, Customs' main source for animal smuggling cases. Based on pictures of the reptiles emailed to him via Mercedes's mobile phone, Price believes that Kraitler Mullet, a snake dealer based in the Los Angeles outskirts known for illegally importing exotic and highly dangerous snakes, is responsible. After a shootout, the agents subject Kraitler to tactical interrogation after the latter is injured by a snakebite; with Harris withholding the antivenom, the injured Kraitler finally reveals that Kim hired him to obtain the snakes and exposes more of Kim's schemes of smuggling them on board the flight. Price medicates Kraitler and commands his supplies of antivenom for the victims on the plane based on the list given to him while Harris orders Kim arrested and tried on multiple counts of murder and attempted murder, with the death penalty as an option. Harris contacts Flynn, telling him that antivenom will be ready for the passengers when they land. However, Flynn discovers that the cockpit is filled with snakes and Rick is dead. After a brief discussion, Troy, a bodyguard for rapper Three G's, agrees to land the plane based on his experience playing a flight simulator. After everyone gets prepared, Flynn shoots out two windows with his pistol, causing the plane to depressurize. The snakes are blown out of the cockpit and the lower floor of the plane. Despite his lack of real-world experience, Troy makes an emergency landing and the plane makes it to the terminal. The passengers exit the plane and antivenom is given to those who need it. Just as Flynn and Sean are about to disembark, a remaining snake jumps out and bites Sean in the chest. Flynn draws his gun and shoots the snake, and paramedics rush to a traumatized Sean, who remains unharmed due to a ballistic vest he wore throughout the ordeal after his rescue from Kim's henchmen. As a token of gratitude, Sean later takes Flynn to Bali and teaches him how to surf.

An interrogator prepares a man to take the stand against mob boss Frank Matajano on an Air Force base. A driver delivers takeout, which is taken to the interrogation room. Once opened, it explodes, killing the witness. In court, a judge places court on recess until the attorney general can bring sufficient evidence against Matajano. The attorney general angrily demands a U.S. marshal, Pat Schiller (Robert John Burke), get evidence in 72 hours to replace the killed witness. On a chain gang, an inmate harasses Luke Dodge (Stephen Baldwin), who fights back. When Charles Piper (Laurence Fishburne) intervenes, the guards chain him and Dodge together, and then Dodge and Piper begin fighting. The guards discuss a plan in hushed tones and change their magazines, but before they do anything, the inmate who attacked Dodge snatches a gun and starts a shootout. During the confusion, Dodge and Piper escape. The cop who arrested Dodge, Matthew 'Gib' Gibson (Will Patton) picks up a magazine at the crime scene. A fellow cop informs him that the attorney general asked him to place Dodge on that chain gang against protocol. Suspicious, he runs off into the woods and finds the third convict, who is shot and killed by Marshal Schiller. Dodge and Piper argue about their plan; Dodge reveals he needs to escape to collect $5 million he stole. Piper demands half in exchange for his help. Gibson begins to grow suspicious of the marshal's motives and circumstances when he finds out the company from which Dodge stole the money by hacking did not press charges; the company is owned by Matajano. Matajano commissions the hitman from the food delivery to recover a computer disc from, then kill, Dodge. Gibson reveals the magazine he found at the escape scene had blanks—the guards were never intended to kill anyone, and it was supposed to be a setup. Piper and Dodge are cornered by a hunter whom Piper attacks, causing him to have a heart attack. They take his car and drop his body at a hospital, then demand a woman named Cora (Salma Hayek) drive them to a hideout. At her house, they change clothes and part ways—Piper gives Dodge his harmonica for good luck. Dodge goes to a strip club to meet up with his girlfriend; after arranging to meet his hacking partner, Puffy, at a massage parlor to hand off the disc, Matajano's thugs enter their hotel room and kill her and begin to torture Dodge. Piper arrives and kills several of the hitmen, escaping with Dodge. He reveals that he's an undercover cop that Marshal Schiller hired to break Dodge out of prison so that he could recover the disc in exchange for exonerating him from an undercover drug bust that went bad in New York. The disc has evidence the attorney general needs against Matajano. At the massage parlor, Dodge meets up with Puffy, who is immediately shot by Matajano's men. Gibson, who hired a private investigator to get him information on Dodge, also arrives and participates in the gunfight. Piper and Dodge escape on special Ducati motorcycles left by Puffy; Gibson is reprimanded for not leaving the case to the attorney general. Not knowing the location of the disc, Piper and Dodge get desperate. Dodge notices a clue on his bike that lead them to the Georgia Dome and the disc, with Cora's help. The marshal (revealed to be working for Matajano to get the disc before the attorney general), Gibson, Dodge and Piper all end up in a gunfight. Piper and Dodge again escape with Cora's help, telling the attorney general they will hand off the disc at the top of Stone Mountain. Dodge and Piper lead Matajano's men on a chase up the mountain which results in Piper killing them; he meets up with Dodge and they ride a skycar up the mountain. The marshal, presumed dead in the gunfight, stops the car and demands the disc. Piper eventually throws him from the car and they hand the disc off to the attorney general, who exonerates them both and gets Piper his job back in New York.

After 32 people mysteriously drop dead in Boston, the U.S. government calls in scientists Dr. Joshua "Josh" Keyes and Dr. Serge Leveque. They determine that each person had a pacemaker and that electrical interference has caused them to malfunction. Other incidents involving the Earth's magnetic field lead Josh and Dr. Conrad Zimsky to the conclusion that the Earth's inner core has stopped rotating. Unless it is restarted, the magnetic field will continue to degrade and eventually collapse, exposing the Earth to devastating solar radiation. The U.S. government devises a plan to detonate nuclear weapons within the Earth's outer core to restart the rotation. They bring on Zimsky's former partner, Dr. Ed "Braz" Brazzelton, to build a vessel to deliver the bombs. The vessel, named Virgil, is made of unobtainium, a material that Braz developed to withstand extreme pressure. NASA pilots Commander Robert Iverson and Major Rebecca "Beck" Childs are enlisted to pilot Virgil and computer hacker Theodore Donald "Rat" Finch is recruited to avoid general panic by keeping news of further disasters and Virgil 's mission off the internet. Virgil is launched through the Marianas Trench and enters the crust using a laser-based drilling array. After entering the mantle, Virgil drills and falls into a gigantic empty geode, damaging the drilling array. While working to free the vessel from the outside, Iverson is killed by a falling shard. They escape before the geode is flooded with magma. As Virgil passes through a field of diamond formations, one of them breaches the compartment housing the weapons-control module. Serge sacrifices himself to get the team the information and tools they need to detonate the nukes before the compartment is sealed and jettisoned. The team reaches the outer core and realizes that it is much less dense than previously believed, meaning that their nuclear payload is too small for their current plan. Zimsky shares this with mission leader Lieutenant General Thomas Purcell and reveals to the team his work on DESTINI, a U.S. tectonic weapon that likely stopped the core's rotation. Purcell orders them to return, as he plans to try to use DESTINI to restart the core. However, Josh argues that doing so could permanently destabilize it and trigger massive natural disasters. The team elects to continue over Zimsky and Purcell's objections. A burst of ultraviolet rays destroys the Golden Gate Bridge and causes power outages along the West Coast. Concerned about further power outages preventing DESTINI from being fired, Purcell gives the order to do so. Josh communicates with Rat about DESTINI and the latter prevents Purcell from firing the weapon by redirecting power away from it. The team devises a plan to place a bomb in each of Virgil 's remaining compartments, jettison them, and stagger the detonations, using constructive wave interference to increase the force of the bombs. Braz sacrifices himself, going into the uncooled crawlspace of the ship and activating the control so they can manually detach compartments. As they set the charges, Josh and Zimsky realize that the last bomb needs more explosive power than the others. The bomb in the second-to-last compartment falls on Zimsky's leg and he is unable to escape before the compartment is ejected. Josh uses the nuclear fuel rods from Virgil 's reactor to provide the additional energy for the final detonation. The main compartment is left powerless as the bombs begin to detonate, killing Zimsky, and successfully restarting the core's rotation. Josh recalls that unobtainium can convert heat and pressure to energy and the two restore Virgil 's power in time to ride the pressure wave from the explosions out of the core. Eventually they breach the ocean floor near Hawaii, but lose power due to the cold water. Purcell and the U.S. Navy conducted search operations for them until Rat realized that the Virgil crew is using low-power ultrasound to draw whales to them, leading to Josh and Beck being rescued. Shortly afterward, Rat uploads information about Virgil, its team, and DESTINI to the internet, leading to worldwide news reports and tributes to the lost team members.

The crew of the newly commissioned USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) are enjoying shore leave after the starship's shakedown cruise, with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy camping at Yosemite National Park. Their leave is interrupted when the Enterprise is ordered by Starfleet Command to rescue a human, a Klingon, and a Romulan, all diplomats who have been taken hostage on Nimbus III, a planet set aside as a neutral location to advance dialogue among the Federation, Klingon Empire, and Romulan Star Empire. Learning of the Enterprise ' s mission, the ambitious Klingon Captain Klaa decides to pursue Kirk for personal glory. On Nimbus III, the Enterprise crew discovers that Sybok, a renegade Vulcan, is behind the hostage crisis, prompting Spock to admit that Sybok is his half-brother. After the Enterprise crew saves the hostages, Sybok reveals that the hostage-taking was a ruse to lure a starship, which he plans to use to travel to the mythical planet Sha Ka Ree. Sybok believes it lies behind the Great Barrier, a powerful energy field at the galaxy's center, and that God is located there. To take control of the ship, Sybok uses his ability to reveal and heal the innermost pain of a person through the Vulcan mind meld, thus gaining the loyalty of most of the crew. McCoy's pain is that he had helped fulfill his terminally ill father's request to die, only to find later that a cure could have saved his father's life, which has caused him years of guilt. Spock's pain is the knowledge that his father rejected him at birth for being "too human". Kirk refuses to let Sybok remove his pain, claiming that it is necessary to make him human. The Enterprise successfully breaches the Great Barrier, unaware they are being followed by Captain Klaa's warship, a Klingon bird-of-prey. They discover a lone barren planet, and Sybok, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy take a shuttlecraft down to the surface. It appears uninhabited, but after Sybok calls out, a glowing field appears which quickly morphs through many forms representing various religions before settling into the image of a bearded human face, to which Sybok explains that they have come for "your wisdom". The entity asks how they breached the barrier, and upon being told about the Enterprise, it declares that it will use the ship to carry its wisdom to every corner of the universe. A skeptical Kirk asks "What does God need with a starship?", and when the entity asks who he is, Kirk expresses doubt that the actual supreme being would not already know. Irritated, the entity attacks him and Spock, after which they discover it is a powerful and malicious being, imprisoned on Sha Ka Ree in the distant past, with the Great Barrier put in place to keep it from escaping. Realizing his earlier naiveté, Sybok apologizes and attempts to distract the entity by physically attacking it, allowing the others the opportunity to escape. Kirk orders the Enterprise to fire a photon torpedo at the entity, but only Sybok is killed by the strike. Spock and McCoy beam back to the ship moments before the Klingon ship unexpectedly attacks and damages the Enterprise, stranding Kirk on the planet with the weakened and enraged entity. As Kirk attempts to escape from the entity, the Klingon Bird of Prey arrives and destroys the entity with a volley of disruptor fire. Kirk is beamed aboard the Klingon ship, where Spock is unexpectedly waiting. As Spock explains, he convinced the Klingon General Korrd (one of Sybok's hostages who had become a loyal follower) to order Captain Klaa to stand down and apologize for his actions, which Klaa grudgingly does. After returning to Earth, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy resume their camping trip at Yosemite.