Finally hitting theathers here, Gore Verbinski’s latest film is the madcap scifi action comedy that combines a lot of modern scifi staples and starts off as any proper film does: in a Los Angeles diner where a hobo-looking man with a detonator walks in loudly demanding attention.

He proclaims to be a time traveller, on his 117^th loop to the past, there to enlist the patrons to fight against a rogue IA that in the future will cause an apocalypse, to form a ragtag group of clearly improptu warriors for the cause, with everything against them, and it not just skeptics, social network brainrotted teens, but also frigging algorhythm-born monstrosities that will stand in their desperate quest to save humanity from its own creation, or give it a chance in doing so.

While the main quest takes place overnight, the movie gives us flashbacks that brought the “time warriors” on that fateful moment and help flesh out this not that “overlyfictional” or “fantastic” modern dystopia, deliberately contrasting with the vague retro stylings of the plot, since it imagines an IA that can do more than hallucinate bullshit and badly regurgitate stuff, so much it basically – kinda – led humanity to the ending of Enslaved Odissey To West (minus the Journey To West elements).

More importantly, it’s a really fun and funny action comedy that not only entertains (and shows usa Gore Verbinski in peak form), doesn’t just go “new technology bad” but actually tackles the modern fears and issue rising from people using technology as a religion in itself to deliberately reject reality, dump any responsability or consequences from failure, and the creeping nature of the new menace, the new vampire they basically invited in, in a nihilistic, apathetic abandon of choice.

The ending is pretty good too.

Recommended.