That critic’s rule that you’ve got to meet every film on something resembling its own terms in order to give it a fair shot gets a severe test with “Love Virtually,” an indie action rom/com that’s part live-action, part CGI simulated “VR” avatars and their lives of digital desperation.

With a narrative, characters and dialogue that lurch between “inside gaming” jokes and jargon and flippant “old folks” reactions and responses to it, it never congeals into anything one would care to embrace, even if we could find something to grab hold of. But “Love Virtually” — the title’s a pun on “Love, Actually” — is an interesting indie cinema exercise, a failure that might have a natural audience in midnight showings at online gaming conventions, or streamed at “virtual” versions of such things.

As the pandemic rumbles on, this obsessed gamer who goes by “Roddy Danger” (Peter Gilroy) is too distracted to hang onto his virtual and real-life girlfriend Kimberly (Paige Mobley) and finds himself frantic to win her back in VR.

His cheat code to that might be via her just-“canceled” “Beverly Hills Bitches” influencer/cousin Clarissa (Nikki Howard), who has her own problems thanks to posting a paid endorsement of a “mud mask” beauty product the day the rest of America was posting the same black square to show solidarity with Black Lives Matter as the George Floyd murder protests were ramping up.

Clarissa’s therapist (Cheri Oteri) might have words of advice. But she’s also distracted, having a virtual affair with some avatar who could very well be her therapist husband (Stephen Tobolowsky) in disguise.

Then there’s the V-ball (virtual hoops) star La Monte (Vincent Washington) who got canceled for cavalierly infecting half the NBA by mocking the virus as he touched a bunch of microphones (Helllooo Rudy Gobert) whose agent Barry (Ryan O’Flanagan) is dealing with that, Daddy issues and a neglected girlfriend (Ksenia Valenti) who takes up with an AI “Chatbot” Paul F. Tompkins) in revenge.

Hapless Roddy has one last shot at winning Kimberly back from his nemesis, successful gamer Kalvin Kluck (director and co-writer L.E, Staiman). That will have to happen at the exclusive virtual Club Kaboom, where all our characters are headed as this picture makes that its destination where every storyline is to be resolved.

A kid gaming savant, murderous Russian hackers, assorted single scene nerds and other subplots clutter this 85 minute movie’s script and make it all too easy to say “Who cares about ANY of them/ANY of this?”

The film’s obvious issue is its budget, but that relates to how hackneyed the situations are and how thinly drawn the character “types” turn out to be.

Throw a lot of money at this and you’d get bigger name actors. But as they’re mostly seen in VR, what would be the point? Sell the script to a big distributor and they’d rewrite it completely to try and excise the most trite elements.

But the sight gags and joke-packed dialogue have their moments.

“The Dark Web? Is that a Black Lives Matter thing?”

“Stop being such a little girl!” agent Barry’s macho/closeted dad (Tom Virtue) barks. “You’re like Timothee Chalamet in ‘Little Women!'”

Roddy met Kimberly as he virtually rescued her from a virtual slip-and-fall accident at the virtual “Hole Foods” supermarket.

Etc.

Generously meeting this mess on its “own terms” leads to the judgment that there’s an idea or two here that might find a better home in a better script with a bigger budget.

Rating: unrated, VR/CGI simulated violence, date rape, sex, gunplay

Cast: Peter Gilroy, Cheri Oteri, Paige Mobley, Vincent Washington, L.E. Staiman, Ryan O’Flanagan, Harper Frawley and Stephen Tobolowsky.

Credits: Directed by L.E. Staiman, scripted by Cheston Mizel and L.E. Staiman. A Premiere Digital release.

Running time: 1:24