A mildly intelligent, spider-shaped robot named Martin Van Buren has been stranded in 1982 by Thomas, his previous owner, and given a list of tasks to complete. He has vowed to do none of them, instead telling everyone who will listen that he is a super-intelligent robot from the future. Martin has met a girl in Dubuque, Iowa named Angel. She has promised him a misunderstood "party" in exchange for healing her dying grandmother who isn't actually dying but rather only dangerously gullible. Angel has discovered that Martin is not, in fact, a faith-healing little-person inside a movie prop spider, but rather, exactly what he has said he was - an artificial intelligence inside a spider-shaped robot, possibly from the future.