The year is 2028 and for years multinational company Omnicorp has been filling the military
with their very advanced drones that keep up security around the world by using scanners
that identify if someone is threatening or not on the spot.
TV host Novak wants these robots to replace the police in American cities too, but people
are afraid of machines and the government is against having law enforcement that can’t
feel.
To prove his point, Novak has brought a military leader to his show to explain the details
of how every operation works.
He’s also sent a reporter to the Middle East that will show the robots’ work on
live tv.
The reporter goes around town recording how the robots don’t hurt anyone that isn’t
a threat, calling it a victory for safety procedures.
However the locals are clearly not happy with the fact their home is taken over by robots,
so a group of rebels sneaks around with heavy weaponry and jumps on the robots for a full-out
attack.
Soon a violent battle ensues on the streets, with buildings getting blown up by the robots
on the ground but also the flying drones that shoot any time they see an attacker.
Many of these rebels also jump on the robots from roofs to bring then down.
As the entire area begins to explode, the robots find a scared young boy with a knife
in his hand, only trying to protect himself.
But for the scanner a knife is enough to be a threat and the robot immediately kills the
boy.
Novak doesn’t let this change his mind and tells his viewers that what the robot did
was a good thing, just part of keeping the city safe.
Meanwhile at the police station, Detective Alex comes to see his boss, who demands an
explanation about the incident his rude coworkers are accusing him of.
Alex tells her the whole story: the previous night, Alex and his best friend met with some
criminals for an undercover operation.
They tricked a dealer into revealing some illegal weapons and arrested him on the spot.
However when Alex went to check the evidence locker later, the weapons they took were missing
and nobody signed the paperwork, meaning a dirty cop had to take them out.
Afterward Alex and his partner went undercover again and met with the gang leader at a restaurant,
but they were interrupted when the leader got a call warning him that Alex was a cop.
The leader immediately left the building and sent his men to kill the cops, starting a
gunfight all over the place.
The two policemen quickly shot back, but they were clearly outnumbered, so when they saw
an opening they tried to escape through the back alley.
Alex made it outside without issues, but unfortunately his best friend got shot in the process.
After hearing the story, Alex’s boss scolds him for going out without backup and says
she’ll handle the search for the dirty cop.
Meanwhile in Washington DC, Omnicorp CEO Sellars tries to convince the government that robot
cops are a good idea, but the senators turning him down again.
Afterward at Ominicorp’s headquarters, Sellars has a meeting with his team to discuss ideas
on how they can make the public accept robots on the streets.
Since the senators keep mentioning the fact robots can’t feel, he comes to the conclusion
that they need to fusion an actual human with a machine.
Meanwhile at a special clinic, Doctor Norton is helping his latest patient adapt to his
new hands.
Norton specializes in robotic prosthetics that work based on your own emotions, so the
patient must learn to concentrate on his mechanical hands to be able to play the guitar.
The practice is interrupted by Sellars, who talks to Norton in private and convinces him
to design a human-machine hybrid.
Norton gets together with Sellars’ team to discuss their options, but every retired
policeman has had their wounds for too long and is now too emotionally traumatized to
go back to work, so they need to look for a fresher case.
In another part of the city, Alex’s rude coworkers reveal themselves to be dirty cops,
and they warn the gang leader that the police department is after him.
To get rid of this investigation, they’ll have to do something about Alex.
Later while Alex is visiting his best friend at the hospital, a criminal puts a bomb under
his car.
In the evening, Alex goes home and spends some time with his son David and his wife
Clara.
When they’re about to get busy, Alex hears the alarm of his car go off and goes outside
to check.
As soon as he comes closer to the vehicle, the car explodes, leaving him severely injured.
As soon as Omnicorp hears of this, they invite Clara to their offices to make an offer: they’ll
give Alex a whole new mechanical body so he can go on living.
Clara is hesitant, but then they describe in disgusting detail all the wounds Alex has
suffered, pointing out that if Clara doesn’t make her choice now Alex will die soon.
Clara has no choice but to accept.
Three months later, Alex is happily seen dancing with his wife at a house party, but then the
image starts crumbling down.
The scientists reveal Alex's new form, which is ninety percent mechanical parts but his
brain is still human, so he’s slowly going through his memories.
When they finally wake him up, Alex is confused and upset, so Norton quickly reminds him what
happened and guides him through his first steps.
However the body feels too weird and when Alex hears the word “amputee” he freaks
out, demanding for the suit to be removed.
When Norton tries to calm him down, Alex violently pushes him away before running out of the
building, pushing anyone who tries to stop him.
His running speed is amazing, and when he encounters the wall surrounding the building,
he can jump over it without breaking a sweat.
However when he starts running again, Norton finally decides to shut him down remotely.
A moment later, Alex wakes up at the lab again, and Norton removes the main pieces of the
robotic body to show Alex that only a few organic parts of him are left, so there’s
no running away from this.
Norton says it was the only way to save him, but Alex thinks death is better than a machine
and asks the doctor to pull the cord.
Norton changes his mind by explaining Clara asked for the procedure and that his family
is waiting for him, so he should do this for her.
To prove this, Norton lets Alex call Clara, although Alex only shows her his face for
now.
Clara thinks he’s still very handsome and can’t wait to reunite with him.
Now that Alex has accepted to cooperate, he spends the night at the lab, where his body
goes through maintenance.
The next day, he’s taken to do some training with Rick, the military man in charge of handling
Omnicorp’s robotic armies in the field.
He thinks that the machines are already perfect so he considers it a waste of time and resources
to include a human in the project, but he still provides Alex with weapons, which he
can put away on his special leg compartments.
They put Alex and a robot through a simulation where they must kill criminals and save civilians,
and as everyone runs around doing the rescues without much trouble, Rick's predictions are
true: Alex ends up being slower than the machines because the machines simply evaluate and act
while Alex takes a moment to feel between evaluation and acting.
Later in the evening when he’s alone, Alex uses a computer to keep track of what’s
happening with the gang leader case.
The next day Sellars is disappointed by the results of the simulation and furiously orders
Norton to fix this problem.
He also thinks Alex needs to look better on screen for marketing reasons, so he asks for
a better tactical suit.
Later at the lab, the doctor opens Alex's head and does some modifications to his brain
that will make him think he still has free will but the machine will be actually the
one acting.
Alex is also given a complete makeover, now his armor looks black and slick.
Afterward they bring Alex to an abandoned building for a new test: this time he must
go against Rick and an army of robots alone.
Using his visor to scan the area and with outstanding reflexes, Alex quickly assesses
the situation and takes action, shooting at every single robot without hesitation.
He's also quick to find cover and hide when he’s shot at, so he never gets hurt.
One by one all the robots go down and in the end, only Rick is standing, so Alex shoots
at his exoskeleton armor to take the win.
All his reaction times are perfect and he never suspects the machine is doing the choosing,
so the experiment is considered a success.
Sometime later, Norton takes Alex home so he can finally see his family.
He’s rather nervous and has to take a moment to gather courage, but as soon as Clara sees
him, she doesn’t hesitate to hug him.
David is a bit wary, but after Alex lets him touch the cool mechanical parts, David says
he’s happy to see him and that he’s been recording some games to watch together.
Unfortunately Alex can’t stay because he must spend the night in the lab for maintenance.
When he returns to the base, Alex meets his best friend, who has finally recovered, and
he promises to catch the people that hurt him.
A few days later, Sellars is eager to introduce Alex to the citizens in a big public event,
so Norton begins transferring all the files of crimes and criminals since 2011.
Alex also gathers access to every single security camera in the city.
The information is a lot to handle by a human brain, and when Alex sees the recording of
the explosion of his car, he has a seizure and passes out.
Norton doesn't think they should have a press conference today, but the Omincorp team forces
Norton to fix the issue.
Having no choice, Norton kicks everyone out except for his assistant and proceeds to suppress
Alex's emotions, leaving him to act like an actual cold robot.
Now they can finish downloading the whole database without trouble.
When they go to the presentation, Alex concentrates on his duty and ignores his wife and friends,
only seeing faces as criminals or civilians and not loved ones.
Once he's on stage, his scanner begins identifying all the faces in the crowd until he finds
a criminal two steps in front of the police.
He immediately jumps into the crowd and catches the criminal in seconds without hurting anyone,
which causes the population to start admiring Alex.
On TV, Novak uses this incident to prove robots are better because the police had been standing
next to a criminal and they never noticed.
However Clara is very upset because they won't let her or David talk to Alex, in fact they're
not allowing him to have a life at all.
Norton tells her not to worry because this is just a side effect of the medicine and
he’ll get better soon.
The next day, Alex finally returns to duty at the station and announces he'll catch thirteen
criminals today.
Ignoring his friend’s worries, he takes a bike and finds a group of dealers thanks
to his access to the database and the cameras.
Most of the group runs away, but Alex manages to bring down a dealer and threatens him until
he confesses the location of his base of operations.
Moments later, Alex arrives at an illegal kitchen and enters the building still on his
bike, shooting at every criminal and not being bothered by normal bullets coming his way.
Even when they try to get him from behind, Alex’s scan detects them and easily brings
them down.
People at Omnicorp are happy with the results, and Sellars gives Rick full access to monitor
Alex just in case.
As days pass, Alex becomes a hero in the city, stopping crime in every corner.
Novak makes a big deal out of it and brings Sellars to his show to explain to the senator
that the American public is slowly changing their minds.
When the senator tries to protest against it, he’s simply cut off.
Meanwhile, the dirty cops meet with the gang leader to make a plan to deal with Alex, who
has been making their job very hard.
Sometime later, Clara risks running through traffic to finally approach Alex, asking him
to show some emotion.
She wants him to do something for his family since his son is suffering from night terrors
and needs his father.
At first Alex seems unaffected, but as he drives away, he begins approaching this as
the robotic cop he is: he searches for security footage and discovers David had seen the car
explosion, which left him traumatized.
Learning this about his son really upsets Alex's humanity and slowly his brain begins
undoing Norton’s process of taking away his emotions, he's furious that his family
has been suffering because of him and he intends to fix it.
People at the lab notice this change through Alex's tracker and consider turning him off,
but Norton wants to see what happens since technically Alex is still solving a crime,
it just happens to be his own.
Alex goes to his home and by taking the information from all the cameras, he recreates the day
of the attack and sees his wife and son the moment he exploded.
Using the few clues he has, he goes to look for a man who worked with the gang leader,
dragging him out of the car through the window and breaking his hand.
Alex steps on it to make him hurt more, and the criminal gives him the phone number of
the leader's driver.
After triangulating the signal of his last call, he finds the exact location of the gang's
base.
While Alex makes his way there, cops at the station learn that Alex is out there solving
his own crime, and soon the gang leader is informed that Alex is going after him.
By the time Alex makes it to the base, the criminals are ready to receive him in the
dark with night vision goggles and heavy weaponry.
Alex breaks in with his bike and activates his night vision, triggering a gunfight.
No matter how many criminals there are or how many times they shoot, Alex has no trouble
walking through the base shooting anyone that gets on his way until nobody is left alive.
Although this time, he does receive some damage in the process.
Afterward Alex turns on the power again and takes samples of all the fingerprints on the
weapons, which finally reveals which cops are dirty.
Alex rushes to the police station to interrogate the men and play incriminating footage on
all the computers.
One of the dirty cops tries to attack Alex, who immediately shoots him to defend himself.
The other guy is terrified and confesses it was their boss who planned everything, then
Alex shoots him anyway.
Afterward Alex confronts her boss and tries to make her confess, but at that moment Rick
shuts him down.
Rick calls Sellars to tell him they can use this, and soon Novak puts the incident all
over his show, proving that machines are better than people because they can’t be bought.
The next day, the government starts to vote in favor of bringing robots to the local police.
However the transmission is interrupted by Clara, who finally goes to the news and tells
everyone she hasn't been allowed to see her husband and that nobody from Omincorp will
answer her calls.
Clara’s involvement makes Sellars worried that she’ll bring Alex’s humanity back
and they’ll lose control of him, therefore costing them the law.
If they retire Alex, it'll look like their experiments aren't good enough, so instead
they decide to kill Alex to make him go as a tragic hero that people will remember fondly.
Sellars gets in contact with Norton to order him to do it, and when a furious Norton refuses,
Sellars buys him over by offering to finance his laboratory for ten years.
Norton ends up accepting but only if Sellars compensates Alex's family as well.
Afterward, Sellars tells Rick to get his robots ready.
While the law gets approved by the senators, Sellars meets with Clara and David and makes
them think Alex is already dead.
At the lab, Norton arrives to find there are already soldiers there demanding to see Alex,
so he runs away as they open fire on him.
Norton makes it to Alex first and activates a button that makes Sellars think he’s dead,
however Alex still wakes up.
It turns out Norton took his transmitter away so nobody has access to his vitals and they
can’t turn Alex off ever again.
After Alex quickly shoots both soldiers, Norton tells Alex about the whole plan, and Alex
decides he must kill Sellars, ignoring Norton when he tries to stop him.
As he takes the streets on his bike, Rick sees him from his car and warns Sellars, who
was about to announce Alex’s death on stream.
His guards immediately take him, Clara, and David to the roof to wait for a rescue helicopter.
Meanwhile Norton goes to the police to find Alex’s best friend and asks for his help.
At that moment Alex arrives at Omnicorp headquarters and finds it surrounded by Rick’s robots
and several guards.
Alex knocks down a guard in a second to make the others surrender, then he breaks into
the building using his bike and starts a gunfight with the other robots.
Unlike normal criminals, the robots are much better armed and have better armor, so Alex
has trouble fighting them.
He keeps getting hit by heavy bullets, and when he tries to jump on a robot to stop it,
he’s simply thrown away and gets caught under some debris.
Alex manages to free himself with some shots, but running away with a wounded leg means
he’s too slow and the robots begin shooting him from behind.
At that moment a police truck breaks into the building, and Alex’s best friend walks
in front of him, causing the robots to stop shooting because cops are safe in the system.
This gives Alex the chance to escape through a back corridor.
Deeper in the building.
Alex finds Rick and tries to shoot him, however the system has Rick classified as non-threatening
and won't allow Alex to harm him.
Rick has some fun shooting Alex with warning shots, and when he’s ready to shoot him
for good, Alex’s best friend shows up and kills Rick first.
Before dying, Rick shoots him back, so Alex rushes to check on his friend, luckily the
wound is nonfatal and they just need to wait for the ambulance.
Next Alex goes to the roof, and when the helicopter sees him, it flies away without picking up
the group.
Sellars is confident that Alex can't attack him because he's programmed as non-threatening
too, but seeing Alex fighting his programming, Sellars threatens to kill Clara and David
just in case.
This is actually worse because Alex’s love for his family allows him to override his
program for good and shoots anyway, killing Sellars as the man returns the shot.
Alex falls to the ground and his family rushes to check on him, but he assures them he’s
fine.
Sometime later, Norton gives Alex back the prototype body and informs him that from now
he is allowed to spend time with his family.
Meanwhile reporters on tv show that the government is more sure now that robots shouldn't be
allowed on the streets and the law is cancelled, especially when Norton accepts to testify
and admit everything he did was wrong.
Novak is furious and rants in front of the camera, reminding the public that the USA
is still the greatest country in the world.