“David”
Written and directed by Brent Dawes and Phil Cunningham, “David”’s animation is on par with Pixar. It sticks to the part of the Biblical story that chronicles the rise of the young shepherd and poet who would become the unifying King of Israel. Of course, David slays Goliath, repels the Philistines, deals with King Saul’s January 6th cling to power and ultimately makes Jerusalem the capital of Israel — all this around 1,000 BC. David (well voiced by Brandon Engman) is an earnest, reluctant leader full of brio, no matter the tall odds.
Scenes of battle and violent conflict are tres G-rated—think fights in “The Lion King.” As David matures as a military leader, he is not the conflicted warrior king depicted in the streaming series “House of David” and the Bible itself, the one who commits adultery with Bathsheba and subsequently hatches a plot to kill her husband. No, this David often breaks into song and follows prophecy to the letter. It’s crisp animation and tight story-telling.
“The Wrecking Crew”
The brotherly dysfunction between a boozed-up cop (Jason Momoa) and a solemnly stoic Navy SEAL (Dave Bautista) propels this crime drama. The Marvel-DC studio divide means we will probably never see the two action stars — and real-life buds — share the screen as Drax and Aquaman, so this may be the closest we get to an action-cum-comedy pairing the two actors. The jacked bros play estranged stepbrothers Jonny (Momoa) and James (Bautista) forced to cooperate to determine whether the hit-and-run death of their father, Walter (Brian L. Keaulana), was an accident.
Walter, it happens, was a B-level private investigator who had dirt on everyone on O’ahu. He allegedly has sent a package to Jonny, now living in Oklahoma, which brings three yakuza looking for it. Jonny manages to fend them off while sauced and wearing just a towel.
This brings Jonny back to his Hawaiian homeland and a bristly bonding experience with elder brother James while battering a litany of bad guys. Angel Manuel Soto (“Blue Beetle”) directs action sequences packed with movement and explosions but also jerkily choreographed and problematic—who hires Uzi-toting henchmen who miss so regularly at point blank range?
“The Wrecking Crew” doesn’t give its leading men much to work with. The script by Jonathan Tropper packs some cheeky gems, like Jonny calling one hulking underling “a fat John Cena,” and even pausing mid-brawl to down a can of beer. But Bautista’s James looks bored and just wants to find a hammock to take five. Much gets wrecked by this crew, but mayhem without meaning just leaves debris.
“Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die”
Evil AI and time travel abound in this quirky, sci-fi do-si-do, which is sort of a meshing of the “Matrix” films with Terry Gilliam’s “12 Monkeys” or “The Fisher King.”
Gonzo guy next door Sam Rockwell is a Brad Pitt-esque traveler from the future. But he’s wearing a clear plastic raincoat with explosives strapped to him, so he’s received in the present as a nutty homeless scamp. Rockwell’s unnamed chrononaut has to recruit a team of volunteers in a diner to stop an AI baby (think the Star Baby in “2001”) from constructing an alter-reality that essentially will enslave mankind in a false, idyllic existence.
Rockwell’s infectiousness and all-in commitment make the movie, which could just be another in the raft of movies where characters get to re-live a day, but director Gore Verbinski (“Pirates of the Caribbean”) keeps the wash-rinse-repeat minefield of lethal obstacles surprisingly fresh. High school students are brainwashed by their smartphones and transformed into a relentless zombie horde, a giant kitty snacks on mouse-sized humans and the police force is the de facto Mr. Anderson of “Matrix” fame. The movie’s lo-fi vibe plays in its favor.
For a déjà vu movie, “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die,” is spry and packed with enough punchy humor and twists to keep it feeling fresh.
For What it's Worth 
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