Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
Written by Cameron Geiser
Gore Verbinski’s return to filmmaking after a decade away from the silver screen holds one of the best titles to come along in some time, possibly even for all of 2026. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is a fascinating sci-fi action comedy that is right at the center of many debates and discussions across kitchen tables and conference rooms across the country and the world over. The film is highly timely as the entire plot hinges on the idea that an AI powered apocalypse is coming sooner than we think. In fact at my screening there was an ad, awkwardly placed in-between movie trailers, where an AI program suggests basic human communication skills to a grown man who doesn’t know how to talk to his mother. It was for Claude, one of the many creepy, off-putting, and frankly unsettling ads that littered the Super Bowl recently. I don’t even know what Claude is, but I know to avoid it now. I don’t need to know. The joke was that the bit devolves into a sex ad but honestly, the first half was more upsetting in concept. The fact that a grown adult couldn’t think to listen to his mother’s interests, or I don’t know, have an actual conversation with her is just… deflating and concerning. This cannot be the state of modern society, right? We can’t be that stupid, can we?
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die’s plot and heart revolve around these types of concerns. Oh boy does it have heart and whimsy, and that all starts with Sam Rockwell’s ‘Man from The Future’ waltzing into a packed L.A. diner one rainy night wrapped in wires, a trailing plastic raincoat, and various bags with blinking lights. In a highly entertaining monologue Rockwell’s Future Man tells of the coming apocalypse, reprimanding everyone there for their overlong screen time and gratuitous social media use that has ruined our ability as a species to think clearly and concisely. People only begin to take him seriously once he reveals specific facts about the various patrons of the diner, things he shouldn’t be able to know. He’s done this before. Many times actually. Based on his data there is an unknown combination of people in this diner that can help him survive the night and stop the apocalypse from coming. You see, across town there’s a nine year old boy who’s about to create a digital God in his basement. They just have to find him, and install safety protocols from the advanced tech in his time that will stop this AI God from being able to destroy/control the flow of life, power, and destiny itself.
Gore Verbinski’s latest tries to balance being a good time and having an important message, but it seemingly prioritizes the former quite a bit.
With only two diner patrons volunteering to help, Rockwell demands the inclusion of several random people that he hasn’t yet worked with. Once the team is together we get a flashback to two high school teachers (Zazie Beetz and Michael Peña) that functions as a critique of how we (as a society) are mishandling the way we teach our kids but also how complacency and a wartime mentality between kids and teachers has evolved to make everyone cynical and dead-eyed in the end. After some of the less consequential team members are killed off we get more flashbacks to the core characters and what led to them being a more successful group this time around. Each flashback focuses on a different sci-fi tinged critique on societal issues that reflect our real world anxieties and the potential horrors of what could come.
Verbinski handles all of this with a steady aim for goofball antics while maintaining the sense of danger that the characters are constantly faced with. However, the writing is where the film falters a bit, but especially in the third act. There are some logical inconsistencies and an odd commitment to comedic bits that totally cut the tension of otherwise taut sequences. There’s also a very odd blurring of reality at times seemingly just to take another jab at AI, which hey man, I get it, but these things could be handled without being so far out of left field as to feel completely ridiculous. It’s an oddly uneven film at times, but one that I really did enjoy. I’m especially biased towards the Anti AI message of the film, but the structure and how that messaging is handled occasionally unbalances an otherwise very entertaining film. The cast is rounded out with solid talent but it really is the Sam Rockwell show and he steals every scene he’s in. If only the script had cooked for maybe a few more drafts those kinks could have been ironed out. Don’t let me stop you from checking it out though, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is a good time at the movies!
Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.