The non-human machine ruling elite of the nuclear war-torn future has dispatched a shape-shifting cyborg assassin into the past to kill a young boy because he soon will be the resistance leader against the machines. However, another android-cyborg, earlier reprogrammed with human values by the resistance, also returns from the future to save the young boy and his mother from the assassin. Special effects, both cataclysmic and dazzling, punctuate the action movie.