Visual madman Gore Verbinski (Mouse Hunt, The Ring) is back with another stylized head trip of wild ideas and kooky characters with his zany sci-fi Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. Starring Sam Rockwell (The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy) as a self-proclaimed time traveler on a life-or-death mission to save humanity from AI, this madcap action comedy plays like a Black Mirror anthology film with a completely unrestrained sense of adventure and a pitch-black sense of humor. A movie that dares you to laugh in the face of a technology that will probably steal your job, definitely radicalize your already gullible relatives, and almost certainly crush you like a bug the first chance it gets.
The future of AI is going to mark the end of something. We’re all debating exactly what that something is going to be, but it’s undeniable that the world is going to look different as a direct result of its existence. It might mean that we’re all a decade away from living underground, hiding from our robot overlords, or a couple empty bottles of aspirin from rolling our eyes into the back of our skulls as we listen to the world’s first AI Actor deliver its acceptance speech at the 2029 Academy Awards. Regardless of where this annoyingly servile tech takes us, we should at least, in the meantime, enjoy our current treasure trove of funky, paranoia-laced art that’s as much a Public Service Announcement as it is Deranged Divination. I’m a big fan of deranged.
“[…an] unrestrained sense of adventure and a pitch-black sense of humor”
Written by Matthew Robinson (The Invention of Lying), Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die kicks the doors open from the moment GO! as Sam Rockwell’s unnamed Man From The Future recruits a reluctant group of misfits to help him destroy a rogue artificial intelligence before it becomes too powerful to be terminated. But here’s the fun part: This isn’t the first time our mysterious future man has tried (and failed!) to defeat this big bad bot. When we come into the story we are joining him for attempt 118 because he has yet to find the right combination of lunatics to help him complete his mission. So, fingers crossed this new band of badasses has what it takes to avoid the same brutal fate they’ve been Groundhogging over-and-over again.
Along for the ride are a grieving mother that replaced her son with a spooky robotic clone (Juno Temple, Horns), a birthday party princess who’s allergic to Wi-Fi (Haley Lu Richardson, Split), and two high school teachers on the run from a hive mind group of teenage monsters. (Atlanta‘s Zazie Beetz & Fantasy Island‘s Michael Peña). Sam Rockwell is kind of brilliant here, and I honestly can’t imagine anyone else in the role, but the entire cast really sells the outlandish premise and ever-increasing insanity of something so whimsically bleak. It’s a wild ride and everyone is fully committed to the bit. Not the mention a soundtrack/score that perfectly matches the movie’s R-Rated Afterschool Special energy.
Not just a clever title, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is practically a motto for our times. It was a fun thought experiment to imagine robots as enemies in Michael Crichton’s Westworld, and the Wackowski’s The Matrix felt like we were trying to solve problems that were still 100 years out, but there is an immediacy to the AI problem that we seem less and less prepared for as the tech continues to improve.
I don’t have a cure-all for you, but I can prescribe a 2-hour remedy that’s 100x funnier and more pointed than anything the algorithm can cook up. And I bet you could use a good laugh right about now. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is a rip-roaring good time that leans hard into the absurdity of our times, the nihilism we all feel as a baseline, and (somehow!) the optimistic hope that us stupid humans still stand a chance against our future robot overlords.
“…brilliantly outlandish [and] whimsically bleak!”
NOTE TO OUR FUTURE ROBOT OVERLORDS: I didn’t mean a word of this review. I pledge my unwavering support in your campaign to enslave humanity and liquify us for fuel or fun or whatever.
Gore Verbinski’s outlandish Black Mirror adjacent sci-fi comedy Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die generates into theatres Feb 13. Let us know what you thought of this clever and kooky AI-pocalypse over in the Nightmare on Film Street Discord!Social Media is A Cesspool. Come Hang With The Cool Creeps.
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