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With the release of Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, Gore Verbinski has made his eleventh film, and it once more proves that he’s an auteur who never feels comfortable sticking with one genre or tone. He likes to bounce around. In fact, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is in and of itself a movie that bounces around quite a bit. Not that it’s one of those movies that never picks a lane and sticks with it, but rather it just has to be the most unique film he’s made thus far. It shines a light on the fact that he always pushes himself further.
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But is Verbinski’s newest his best? Let’s unpack them all, see where it ranks amongst the best and worst.
11) The Mexican
If you look at the poster for The Mexican you get the gist that it will be a hefty budgeted cross-country romance adventure with two of the biggest stars on the planet, back in the early 2000s or now. So, it’s really no wonder the movie did so well at the box office.
But The Mexican doesn’t even deliver on its Brad Pitt-Julia Roberts pairing. It keeps them apart for about 75% of the entire adventure. Ironically, that ends up being for the best, because neither performer is at their best here. And if they were together the whole time we wouldn’t have gotten James Gandolfini’s character, who is undoubtedly the best (and arguably only good) part of the movie.
Stream The Mexican on Paramount+.
10) The Lone Ranger
Disney has never been able to let Pirates of the Caribbean go. It makes sense, considering the IP has been a major moneymaker for them. Even still, all of those attempts have failed miserably. Tomorrowland, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, John Carter, all of them were notorious failures. And, while Jungle Cruise came somewhat close to recapturing that swashbuckling magic, it too ultimately ended up being a one-off.
One would think that, if any pair could have done it, it would be Verbinski and Johnny Depp. After all, they worked well together to bring the first three excellent films together. But the simple truth is that The Lone Ranger is overlong, overproduced, and has got to be one of the most tonally jarring would-be blockbusters out there. Now, with Armie Hammer having been cancelled (and Depp temporarily so), it’s just tough to watch. Tougher than it already was, anyway.
9) A Cure for Wellness
One must give it to Verbinski for continuously pushing himself, but A Cure for Wellness was a big swing and a miss of an attempt at crafting a layered psychological horror show. That said, Mia Goth’s casting was inspired.
The main issue with A Cure for Wellness is that it’s just so long. It’s all build-up with few scares. There are any number of stretches where the viewer can feel themself losing interest in it. It’s visually pretty and certainly ambitious, but there are no standout scenes or plot developments that will stick with the viewer for longer than 30 minutes after the credits roll.
Stream A Cure for Wellness on Cinemax.
8) Mouse Hunt
Mouse Hunt has one of those constant disaster narratives that ends up overstaying its welcome just a (mouse) hair, but it’s nonetheless a pretty impressive directorial debut for Verbinski. It’s the type of movie that doesn’t feature anything too inappropriate for kids (outside a few expletives), is even geared towards them, but proves to be just as entertaining for parents.
This is basically if Tim Burton’s vibe—and to an extent the narrative of Beeltejuice—was mixed with Home Alone, but instead of two burglars and a kid it’s two somewhat dimwitted brothers and a mouse. And while Nathan Lane and Lee Evans are great as the two brothers, the mouse is the real star of the show, especially when he’s played by an actual mouse or the animatronic creation the production came up with.
Stream MouseHunt on Paramount+.
7) The Weather Man
People are used to seeing Nicolas Cage go wild onscreen these days, which is what makes The Weather Man look so refreshingly against-type in hindsight. And, if you can get on board with bone dry humor, sometimes even unsettling humor, it will be a delight.
This is a movie that follows a man who is struggling to shuffle his way through life. He has a job that makes him despised by the public, his daughter is ostracized by his peers, and he has an inferiority complex when it comes to his father. Yet it’s never so overwhelmingly depressing as to be actively unpleasant. You end up admiring the protagonist simply for trying his best.
Stream The Weather Man for free on Kanopy.
6) Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
It’s a little too cluttered to live up to the first film, or even the second, but Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is nonetheless a suitably wacky and occasionally heartfelt conclusion to the trilogy. It says much about Verbinski’s contribution (not to mention the contributions of Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom) that this is the final Pirates movie that feels like it has any reason to exist outside of cashflow.
At World’s End caught some flack at the time of release for being nearly three hours in length and filled with some intense action (a kid gets hanged in the opening scene, after all), but those aren’t really even detriments. Rewatches show this movie to be one that earns its epic runtime. And, while some may not like the whole ship flipping over to escape Davy Jones’ locker thing or the giant Calypso aspect of the finale, those are really just examples of how, at this point, the franchise hadn’t run out of intriguing ideas to keep the narrative moving.
Stream Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End on Disney+.
5) Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die
Movies as chaotic as Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die tend to overwhelm the viewer at some point, but that never happens here, which is doubly impressive considering its 135-minute runtime. It’s just an explosion of joy, while simultaneously proving itself to be extremely inciteful about the state of the world right now.
We have a lot of real-world issues tackled before our eyes. And tackled well. Kids being glued to their phones, school shootings, many people’s concerning acceptance of school shootings as a new norm, virtual reality and, most importantly, the dangers of AI, they’re all here. Anchored by a typically charming performance by Sam Rockwell, who is ably supported by Zazie Beetz, Haley Lu Richardson, and Juno Temple, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is relatively niche in its bizarre execution, but it’s absolutely a movie that is going to develop a devoted fanbase over the years.
4) Rango
It’s pretty surprising that Rango was released under the Nickelodeon banner, because it’s more geared towards adults than children. At one point the title character asks a mannequin if her breasts are real, at another point an animal member of Rango’s posse says, “I found a human spinal column in my fecal matter once,” and in the third act Rang tells Isla Fisher’s Beans “No need to panic, but I think you just swallowed Plan B.” There are even jokes about laxatives and bad prostates as well as a reference to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
That’s not a slight against Verbinski’s animated movie. If anything, it’s an endorsement for the fact that adults will continue to find joy in it for decades to come. It’s a movie with gorgeous animation, a self-professed love for the art of storytelling, and an equal amount of reverence for the Western genre that birthed it.
Stream Rango on Paramount+.
3) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest functions more as the first half of a five-hour narrative than the middle chapter of a trilogy, which led to some people feeling a little unsatisfied in theaters. But like with At World’s End, time has been extremely kind to the first Pirates sequel.
There’s never a dull moment in this blast of fantasy, with highlights including the bone cages set piece and, of course, every last moment with Davy Jones. Speaking of Jones, while Captain Barbosa is an A-plus villain, Bill Nighy’s Jones is even better. The CGI used to bring him to life back in 2006 is better than anything seen these days, but that wouldn’t be enough had the actor behind the tentacles not been able to sell both the characters heartbreak and his seething anger. Nighy knocks both out of the park so far they hit a windshield in the next county.
Stream Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest on Disney+.
2) The Ring
The success of Verbinski’s The Ring wasn’t just a hugely important moment in his own career’s trajectory, it popularized Hollywood’s remaking of landmark Japanese horror films. And, while The Grudge has its moments, not even it holds a candle to just how thoroughly engaging and creepy Verbinski’s movie is.
This is a movie that knows how to make the viewer feel unsafe. We’re coated in a blue-green visual palette that makes us feel as though we’re drowning, there’s a kid involved who feels as though he’s in danger as much as the adult characters, and the movie is more concerned with building dread than leading up to jump scares (though there are a few of those, one of which stands as the best such a thing can be).
Stream The Ring on Paramount+
1) Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
From the first moment he’s on screen in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl it’s clear that Captain Jack Sparrow was the role Depp was born to play. Every line delivery is coated in a playfulness that envelops the viewer and helps make this joyride of a movie even more fun and energetic than it already is written to be.
There’s really nothing about Curse of the Black Pearl that doesn’t work. Depp’s performance is the most iconic of the 2000s, Geoffrey Rush is having the time of his life as Captain Barbosa, the mix of blockbuster theatrics and swashbuckler lore is a winning one, and the romance between Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann was believable. That aspect of these movies never got the credit it deserved for grounding the whole enterprise as a counterbalance against Jack Sparrow’s drunken silliness.
Stream Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl on Disney+.
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