Long before ChatGPT was a household name, Hollywood had been making AI the villain for decades — from HAL 9000 to Skynet to Agent Smith. 

Yet the most emotionally involving spin on the terrors of tech in ages arrives not from groundbreaking sci-fi, but the smart, wonderful and tremendously funny fifth “Toy Story” movie.

That’s a surprise, since it’s a film that I really hoped would never happen. After middling “4,” which was a giant step down from the heartbreaking third, the world was more than ready for Woody and Buzz to ride off into the sunset. Woody actually did.

Well, it’s good that Tom Hanks and Tim Allen got back behind the mike, because the digital age gives Pixar’s playthings a renewed sense of purpose and atypically high stakes. Usually the gang helps a young person stay in touch with their childhood. This time, they save one in progress.    

That’s the formative years of little Bonnie (Scarlett Spears), the girl who inherited the dolls from Andy (who’s now, like, 40) in the last movie. She’s 8 years old, paralyzed by shyness and totally friendless. Desperate, Bonnie begs her parents to buy her a Lilypad, an interactive touchscreen that’s all the rage at school.  

Yes, the baddie that Woody (Hanks), Buzz (Allen) and Jessie (Joan Cusack) must face this time is an alarmingly cute tablet, voiced by Greta Lee.

So, rather than humanity’s fears of artificial intelligence taking control of the nuclear arsenal or replacing us with cyborgs, director Andrew Stanton’s “5” taps into a much more immediate concern: screens rewiring kids’ minds.

Much like when action figure Buzz arrived, sigh, 31 years ago, the toys are mortified by the mysterious intruder and her luminescent ilk. As they look across their neighborhood, all they can see for blocks are glowing blue windows with zombie youths staring into the 10×10 void. 

The end is nigh, they think. How can a cowboy, cowgirl and a space cadet compete against a reactive mini-computer that connects a lonely child to the entire planet? 

But these toys aren’t ready for the dark recesses of eBay just yet. They go head to head — or plastic to plastic — with Lilypad, whom Lee gives a voice that’s both bestie and “Mean Girls.”  

You may recall lovebirds Woody and Bo Peep went off on their own at the end of the last chapter. Of course, they find their way back, but Jessie is running things now. That’s a refreshing and appropriate switch-up. Cusack’s maternal performance is better suited to this particular adventure than Hanks’ “old buddy, old pal” delivery.

After a sleepover mishap, Jessie winds up lost at another house — her first one, it turns out — where a girl named Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris) lives. And it’s there we meet perhaps the best new character in this franchise since 1995: Smarty Pants.

The real misfit toys aren’t the OG crew, we learn, but obsolete computer devices from the aughts. One is Conan O’Brien’s Smarty Pants, a hysterical, hyperactive box that teaches tykes how to use the toilet. He’s been powered down for years and therefore goes berserk when juiced up.

O’Brien is — and I’m sure he’d agree — a toy trapped in a man’s body. He’s practically typecasting. And his demented acting is so energetic and untethered, you can picture Disney security guards hauling him out of the recording studio. I mean that in a good way.

There’s also a lot of fun mined from a shipment of misplaced Buzzes. We check in on the look-alikes occasionally as they morph into a phalanx of determined Navy SEALs to eventually join Jessie and Co.   

“Five” is arguably the first new “Toy Story” film to be both watched and understood by the kids of the 1995 original’s millennial audience. That shared experience is very moving all by itself. 

But, even more poignantly, who can teach these young parents this vital lesson in 21st-century child-rearing better than their own toys?   

“Spider-Man” star Tom Holland won’t spin out too many details about his under-the-radar wedding with Zendaya, except that it’s already happened.

The British actor, who will star with his wife in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and “The Odyssey” this summer, spoke to Esquire U.K. about the private celebrations and gushed about his spouse, whom he lovingly calls “Zee.”

“I found my person,” Holland told the outlet, “She’s my best friend, and I’m the happiest I ever have been when I’m with her.”

Holland, 30, confirmed his marriage to Zendaya, 29, months after fans stirred up the wedding rumor mill in February. Zendaya, who coyly confirmed her engagement to The Times at the 2025 Golden Globes, was spotted earlier this year wearing a plain gold band on her left ring finger in place of her engagement diamond. Weeks after that public sighting, the “Euphoria” star’s stylist and self-proclaimed image architect Law Roach boldly claimed to “Access Hollywood” on the Actor Awards red carpet that “the wedding’s already happened, you missed it.”

Adding to the frenzy, fans took it upon themselves to create and spread AI-generated images of the pair exchanging their vows, including a wild “photo” that depicted a luxurious ceremony on the Italian coast attended by previous “Spider-Man” duos Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone and Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst and officiated by Robert Downey Jr. During an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” Zendaya had her fun with the AI pics and told the host that even her own loved ones had been duped by the fabricated photos.

“Babe, they’re AI,” the “Drama” star recalled telling loved ones. “They’re not real.”

While Holland said the AI-generated images also fooled some of his loved ones, he didn’t feel the need to do much explaining “because they were all there.”

He added, drawing the line: “That’s all you’ll get on that.”

Zendaya and Holland first shared the screen in “Spider-Man: Homecoming” in 2017 and on Monday stunned together at a red-carpet “Spider-Man” event in Madrid. Holland wore black trousers, a black jacket, a red dress shirt and black tie while Zendaya donned a strapless black gown with a fringed skirt. She accessorized her look with a pair of dangling earrings, a silver watch and a thin band on her wedding finger.

Zendaya and Holland will reunite onscreen for Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” which hits theaters July 17. The couple will follow that epic with Destin Daniel Cretton’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” which premieres July 31.