Sam Rockwell stars as the otherwise unnamed "Man from the Future," who shows up at a Los Angeles diner looking like a homeless person but claiming to be a time traveler from an apocalyptic future. He's there to recruit the locals into his war against a rogue AI, although the diner patrons are understandably dubious about his sanity. ("I come from a nightmare apocalypse," he assures the crowd about his grubby appearance. "This is the height of f*@ing fashion!") Somehow, he convinces a handful of Angelenos to join his crusade, and judging by the remaining footage, all kinds of chaos breaks out.
Gore Verbinski's bombastic return to the big screen starts with a bang - well, more accurately, a trickle. It's not easy to forget that this is the same man who delivered three gonzo Pirates of the Caribbean movies when his mysterious protagonist (Sam Rockwell) storms into a diner in the heart of Los Angeles, swathed in a plastic raincoat and covered in a series of tubes and wires... one of which empties a splash of urine onto the linoleum.