Anna Quarrels (Rhonda Griffin), librarian in the Rare Books Room, is approached by Mr. Jamison from the University of Chicago who wishes to study Mary Shelley's original manuscript for "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus". After he's finished, Anna is about to return the manuscript to the stacks when she discovers that Jamison has switched blank paper for the manuscript and walked out of the library with it. Investigating, she learns he used a fake I.D. to access the Rare Books Room and so hires Private Detective, David Raleigh (Justin Lauer) to track him down. David finds fingerprints on the sign-in sheet and discovers the man claiming to be Jamison is really Dr. Winston Berber, an unscrupulous scholar with doctorates in Physics, Mathematics, Folklore, and Philosophy. Berber (Bill Moynihan) is meanwhile gloating over his collection of rare manuscripts; along with the Shelley manuscript, he has obtained the originals of Guy Endore's "The Werewolf of Paris" (1933) and James Putnam's "Mummy" (1993). He now seeks the first edition of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (1897) to complete his collection. Berber has invented an "Archetype Inducer" and plans to use the manuscripts to bring the four greatest monsters from horror history to life to do his bidding.
Dr. Harrison Parker (Jeff Fahey) is a scientist working at Calgorin Industries who developed the Eden Formula, a chemical which can reproduce organisms and cure various diseases. However, unknown to Parker, deep underground the general area of his industrial district, other Calgorin Industries scientists have created a Tyrannosaurus rex from Parker's formula, and keep it locked away in a subterranean location in order to impress stockholders. Soon enough, industry spies enter a laboratory at Calgorin Industries so they can steal the formula and pass it off as their own, making millions of dollars.
Researchers conduct secret and illegal experiments using stem cells. The researchers accidentally discover a serum derived from these stem cells capable of reviving dead cellular tissue. When a security guard, David Doyle, is injured while working and threatens to sue the research company, he is promptly murdered and used as a test subject.
Professor Jonathan Venkenheim, interviewed by a film crew, reveals that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a fictionalized account of his ancestor Johann's scientific and medical accomplishments. Interviewed separately, Venkenheim's girlfriend Anne reveals that he's been suspended and scoffs at his theory. This view is shared by the film crew, though Vicky, the director, stands up for her friend. In their next interview with Venkenheim, he discusses how the Illuminati were trying to discover the secret of life when Johann secretly founded genetics. However, because Johann destroyed his notes, Venkenheim has no proof.
The film starts off at night with Spider-Man jumping from building to building, following a car stolen by two crooks, late for a date with his girlfriend Gwen Stacy. He finally catches up with the vehicle and, complaining that he is late for his date the whole while, eventually manages to stop, overpower and web up the crooks.
Nuvo hangs out with a group of pals who have an inordinate interest in getting high, and like his buddies he's always interested in the next new chemical to come along. Nuvo and his friends Swatch, Chad, Theo and Ping. have heard about a new drug called the Helix, but while they'd like to give it a try, word on the street is that it has rather unpredictable effects—used properly, it can give its users deep enlightenment, but a bad trip can literally cause you to lose your mind. Nuvo's interest in the Helix is more philosophical than recreational, and he falls in with two mysterious figures, Infiniti and Orpheum, who are searching for The Other One—a person who can break through to a new level of understanding while tripping on the Helix.
The Monster Squad is a society of young pre-teens who idolize classic monsters and monster movies and hold their meetings in a tree clubhouse. Club leader Sean (Andre Gower), whose five-year-old sister Phoebe (Ashley Bank) desperately wants to join the club, is given the diary of legendary monster hunter Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Jack Gwillim), but his excitement abates when he finds it is written in German. Sean, his best friend Patrick (Robby Kiger), and the rest of the Monster Squad visit an elderly man, known as the "Scary German Guy" (Leonardo Cimino), actually a kind gentleman, to translate the diary. When the Monster Squad wonders how the German man is so knowledgeable about Van Helsing's battle with monsters, he wryly comments that "he has some experience with monsters" and his shirt sleeve briefly reveals a Concentration camp number tattoo.
In 2169, people are born genetically engineered with a digital clock on their forearm. When they turn 25 years old, they stop aging and their clock begins counting down from one year; when it reaches zero, that person "times out" and dies. Time has become the universal currency; it is used to pay for daily expenses and can be transferred between people or capsules. The country has been divided into "time zones" based on the wealth of the population. The film focuses on two specific zones: Dayton - a poor manufacturing area where people generally have 24 hours or less on their clock at any given time - and New Greenwich - the wealthiest time zone, where people have enough time on their clock to live for centuries.
In 2084, Earthbound construction worker Douglas Quaid is having troubling dreams about Mars and a mysterious woman there. His wife Lori dismisses the dreams and discourages him from thinking about Mars, where the governor, Vilos Cohaagen, is fighting rebels while searching for a rumored alien artifact located in the mines. At "Rekall", a company that provides memory implants of vacations, Quaid opts for a memory trip to Mars as a secret agent fantasy. However, during the procedure, before the memory is implanted, something goes wrong, and the story diverges between the question of what is real and what is hallucination. Apparently, Quaid starts revealing previously suppressed memories of actually being a secret agent. The company sedates him, wipes his memory of the visit, and sends him home. On the way home, Quaid is attacked by his friend Harry and some construction coworkers; he is forced to kill them, revealing elite fighting-skills. He is then attacked in his apartment by Lori, who reveals that she was never his wife; their marriage was just a false memory implant and Cohaagen sent her as an agent to monitor Quaid. He is then attacked and pursued by armed thugs led by Richter, Lori's real husband and Cohaagen's operative.
At the end of the 21st century, Earth is devastated by chemical warfare. What little habitable land remains is divided into two territories, the United Federation of Britain (UFB, located on mainland Europe) and the Colony (Australia). Many residents of the Colony travel to the UFB to work in factories via "the Fall", a gravity elevator running through the Earth's core. A Resistance operating in the UFB seeks to improve life in the Colony, which the UFB views as a terrorist movement.
Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp) is a scientist who researches the nature of death and sentience, including artificial intelligence. He and his team work to create a sentient computer; he predicts that such a computer will create a technological singularity, or in his words "Transcendence". His wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) is also a scientist and helps him with his work.
Jack Harrison (Goldblum) and Gil Turner (Begley) are writers for The Sensation, a supermarket-grade tabloid run by Turner's father, Mac (Norman Fell). Jack is a more serious journalist using The Sensation as a stepping stone to a better career, while Gil is a gangling yes-man ever ready to win his father's approval.
Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is a software engineer, formerly employed by the computer corporation ENCOM, who now runs an arcade bar called Flynn's. He wrote several video games, but another ENCOM engineer, Ed Dillinger (David Warner), stole them and passed them off as his own, earning himself a series of promotions until reaching Senior Executive VP. Having left the company, Flynn attempts to obtain evidence of Dillinger's actions by hacking the ENCOM mainframe, but is repeatedly stopped by the Master Control Program (MCP), an artificial intelligence written by Dillinger. However, since its inception the MCP has become power-hungry, illegally appropriating business and even government programs and absorbing them to increase its own capacities; it informs Dillinger of its plans to subjugate The Pentagon and the Kremlin, and expresses interest in China with its request for Chinese-translation programs, blackmailing Dillinger into compliance with records of his theft of the games.
In 1989, Kevin Flynn, software engineer and the CEO of ENCOM International, disappears. Twenty years later, his son Sam, now ENCOM's primary shareholder, takes little interest in the company beyond playing an annual prank on its board of directors.
In 1969, an American US Army Special Forces team receives orders to secure a village against North Vietnamese forces. Private Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) discovers members of his squad and various villagers dead, all with their ears removed. Deveraux finds Sergeant Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren), who has gone insane, with a string of severed ears and holding a young boy and girl hostage. Devereaux, who is near the end of his tour of duty, tries to reason with Scott, who shoots the boy and orders Devereaux to shoot the girl to prove his loyalty. Deveraux refuses and tries to save the girl, but Scott kills her with a grenade. The two soldiers shoot each other to death. Deveraux and Scott's corpses are recovered and iced by a second U.S. Special Forces squad, their deaths covered up as "missing in action.