Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die
A strange man (Sam Rockwell, "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri") wrapped in wiring and electronic devices walks into Norm's Diner in L.A. on a busy night and announces that he is from the future and 'all this is about to go horribly wrong.' He tells an employee, calling her by name, not to call the police, catching her with phone in hand and declares that this is his 117th time trying to form the perfect team from among Norm's customers to save the world from an oncoming AI apocalypse in "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die."
Laura's Review: B-
The first movie from director Gore Verbinski ("Mousehunt," "The Pirates of the Carribean") since 2016's "The Cure for Wellness" is both a comedy and deadly serious about the dangers of A.I. Writer Matthew Robinson ("The Invention of Lying," "Love and Monsters") gives the film something of an omnibus structure, embedding three separate flashbacks featuring folks from the man from the future's crew to illustrate just how dangerously society and technology have veered off course. Unfortunately, when he returns to the present, he also makes the common tactical error of overstuffing his climax and Verbinski doesn't rein him in, derailing the film's momentum.
The opening scene takes off like a rocket ship, Rockwell commanding the screen as the futuristic crier who looks like a deranged homeless person. The fact that he not only knows everyone's names, but details about them, should convince everyone to join him, but except for one guy who he vigorously rejects as having proven hopeless on past missions, only one quiet woman in the corner, Susan (Juno Temple, TV's 'Fargo,' "Roofman"), raises her hand. Future Man will also recruit Mark (Michael Peña, "World Trade Center," "End of Watch") and Janet (Zazie Beetz, TV's 'Atlanta'), Bob (Daniel Barnett), Scott (Asim Chaudhry, TV's 'People Just Do Nothing') and a couple of others, while nixing a woman in a battered blue tulle princess dress as too weird. Then a bottle of hot sauce rolls off a table and spins on the floor, stopping pointing towards her. He shrugs and invites Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson, "Support the Girls," "Columbus") along as well.
This is where the filmmakers veer off into their first cautionary tale, titled 'Mark and Janet,' in which substitute teacher Mark learns the hard way not to interfere with a student and his phone. Panicked by the response, Mark rushes into the teachers' lounge telling Janet and others there is a student conspiracy to make teachers disappear. He and Janet end up fleeing what amounts to a zombie horde. Back in our present, Bob, who has a gun, will be sacrificed to the massive police presence now forming outside the diner while Susan announces the existence of a trap door to a cellar which Future Man questions as he's never encountered it on all his visits. But sure enough, it exists, and they all scurry down as we segue once again into a flashback, this time Susan's, a tale which may connect to the first with its creepy 'solution' to school shootings.
Future man now reveals that the 'father' of the A.I. apocalypse is a kid, seen ferociously and hypnotically bashing away at a keyboard. They will face multiple obstacles on the way to his house. A third flashback fleshes out Ingrid's story, illustrating the dangers of virtual reality. We'll also learn something about her that tips a hat to "The Terminator." As Future Man tells everyone that he's never actually gotten inside A.I. kid's house before, he warns they are about to face the most dangerous part of their mission and A.I. throws all manner of ammunition, culminating in an ingenious A.I. SlopMonster. But there is even more to come in a movie that would have been more effective with some considerable trimming in its third act, including Ingrid's flashback.
While Rockwell shoulders the film, other members of the cast have uneven screen time, Haley Lu Richardson barely registering until Ingrid's flashback segment. Peña and Beetz disappear for a large portion of the film. Temple and Chaudhry are the most prominent of Rockwell's crew and we just know Chaudhry's in trouble when he doesn't get his own back story. The big finale, which includes hordes of those teenagers, is amateurishly directed, extras stumbling around in disorganized fashion while that A.I. pumps out villains who wandered out of the "Toy Story" franchise.
Still, "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die" (the title is the greeting used by those venturing into virtual reality), unwieldy as it becomes, is bursting with ideas and Rockwell keeps the fun factor high, pausing to dine on Hostess Snowballs and Twinkies with knife and fork, presumably cuisine of the future. And you've got to admire costuming that looks like it was assembled from that box of discarded cables everyone seems to have hanging around. This is an entertaining film with so much on its mind, it's just a little too much of a good thing.
Robin's Review: B-
A weirdly dressed man walks into an LA diner and declares he is from the future. He is there to recruit a very specific crew to fight a rogue Artificial Intelligence that will, in that future, take over the world in “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die.”
Lately, I have been thinking about those celebrities that evoke the thought: where the heck have they been? When I heard that Gore Verbinski directs “Good Luck…,” my thought was – you can guess. It has been a decade since we saw (or not) his 2016 film, “A Cure for Wellness,” so his latest work is, shall we say, unexpected.
Per the Man from the Future, he has journeyed back in time to the diner on 117 previous occasions searching for the correct combination of customers to be his army against AI. It is a ragtag group and not all of them will make it through the war. Some, though, will make their mark in the battle against the all-intrusive AI.
The story plays with the time travel paradox – pretty much trashing Isaac Asimov’s rules from his novel The End of Eternity (1955) - and that is OK. The statement the filmmakers make about the current and growing intrusion of AI on all of our lives – like it or not – is timely and called for.
One of several statements on the dangers of technology focuses of the humble smart phone and how teens (and everyone else) are possessed by that little plastic rectangle. One day, I was watching a busy pedestrian way and noticed the passersby were all hunched over walking and looking at their phones. I started counting and every one – and I tallied 39 before I stopped counting – had their pusses planted on the phone. Verbinski handles that possession in both a funny and chilling way.
My problem with “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” is the same one I had, lo those many years ago, when I saw “Poltergeist (1982).” I enjoyed the movie and where it was going – I love a good time travel story and applaud the dire warnings – until the big finale. Here, it is a case of a bridge too far as the climax is a) bombastic b) way too long and noisy and c) boring. They had me for most of it.
The ensemble cast, led by Sam Rockwell, get decent shrift but you know who is going to make it and who will not. Some of the characters are given a back story and their own flashback so it is a dead giveaway who is going to make it. It takes the guessing away.
Briarcliff Entertainment releases "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die" in theaters on 2/13/26.
