A mysterious man (Sam Rockwell) claiming to be from the future steps into a bar looking for recruits to fight the impending apocalypse with him, but who will be the right group of heroes to survive the night? And is making it to the finish line even possible?

Gore Verbinski assembles what truly feels like a dream cast for a sci-fi action comedy that’s absolutely nuts and isn’t ashamed of it. Sam Rockwell often does a great job of playing guys who seem insane but are actually the only one in the room who’s right, and here is no exception. Haley Lu Richardson and Juno Temple are additional standouts and anchor the film emotionally as well. Though the future hints to be bleak in the story, the clever non-linear narrative pulls down the curtain on a seemingly grounded diner in the present, to reveal that this world and its past is nothing like our own, only it could be. The satire is very unsubtle but also truer than we’d like to admit; we’re often so glued to our phones and so overly reliant on social media and virtual/artificial creations for everyday tasks, and worse, gratification and comfort, that we miss the world around us and forget to use basic common sense and human decency.

At some point, the movie gives up on trying to explain itself and just starts throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, but Verbinski’s imagination make this feel like a large-scale film with scale and a ridiculous self-awareness that’s less concerned with making sense and more so with big excitement that very much succeeds at violent and endearing yet cleverly structured irreverence.