THE STORY – A man claiming to be from the future takes the patrons of an iconic West Hollywood diner hostage in search of unlikely recruits in a quest to save the world.
THE CAST – Sam Rockwell, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Peña, Zazie Beetz, Asim Chaudhry, Tom Taylor & Juno Temple
THE TEAM – Gore Verbinski (Director) & Matthew Robinson (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 134 Minutes
The early 2000s were a great time to be Gore Verbinski. After an initial run of financially successful films, he steered the ship for the first three entries in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, earning critical acclaim and box office success with a trio that grossed more than $2.68 billion worldwide. He followed that run by winning the Oscar for his next film, the animated “Rango” (2011). For a time, he appeared to be on top of the movie world. Then came “The Lone Ranger.” The 2013 critical and financial disaster effectively sent Verbinski to what many call “Director Jail,” and, aside from the little-seen 2016 horror film “A Cure for Wellness,” he has not directed since. A reprieve may now be in the offing with his new sci-fi satire, “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die,” a comedic barrage of chaos in which a Man From the Future returns to the present to warn of the destruction AI will cause in the decades ahead.
Casting an agent of chaos with a sharp sense of humor is no small task, yet Academy Award winner Sam Rockwell proves an inspired choice. Wearing a scraggly beard and clad in a chic ensemble fashioned from garbage bags and what appears to be a suicide vest, he bursts into the iconic West Hollywood diner Norm’s and announces to stunned patrons that he is seeking recruits to help save the planet’s future. Met with silence, he moves from booth to booth, selecting seven “volunteers” with curious familiarity. There is a reason for that familiarity. This marks the 118th time he has stormed into Norm’s to deliver the same message to the same group of diners, attempting to assemble the precise septet needed to reach the inventor of AI and implant a fail-safe mechanism to prevent the coming catastrophe. He has failed 117 times. This time, however, with this particular combination of reluctant recruits, the outcome may finally change.
Screenwriter Matthew Robinson structures the narrative along two tracks. The first follows the team’s swift progress toward locating the nine-year-old prodigy developing the AI system. Surprised by their early success, the Man From the Future begins to scrutinize his team more closely. That scrutiny fuels the second track, a series of flashbacks revealing each recruit’s fraught relationship with advanced technology.
Mark, played by Michael Peña, is a substitute teacher at the same school where his wife, Janet, played by Zazie Beetz, works. Eager to inspire his students, he instead confronts a classroom of children glued to their phones. When he touches one device, all the phones lose power, prompting the students to rise in zombified unison and stalk the couple through the streets in search of restored connectivity. Verbinski layers the sequence with playful nods to George Romero’s films.
Elsewhere, Susan, portrayed by Juno Temple, is a grieving mother approached by a tech company offering to clone her recently deceased son, provided she agrees to have advertisements periodically inserted into his consciousness. Ingrid, played by Haley Lu Richardson, suffers from a severe allergy to WiFi and cell signals, costing her both her boyfriend, played by Tom Taylor, and her job as a children’s party entertainer. Because of her disheveled appearance, the Man From the Future has overlooked her in previous attempts. Her inclusion now may be the variable that changes everything.
Verbinski directs with a striking visual style that punctuates the film’s many sight gags while establishing a grunge-inflected aesthetic suggestive of impending urban decay. Not every flourish lands, and certain elements feel under-explained, yet when the film connects, such as during the surprise appearance of a gigantic whiskered creature evoking “Ghostbusters,” the result is memorably offbeat and reminiscent of “Everything Everywhere All It Once” in its energy and style.
The film occasionally falters in Robinson’s screenplay. The imaginative conceits are bold, but the dialogue can feel overly explicit, reiterating themes already conveyed visually. The broad condemnation of modern technology sometimes borders on preachy, and the pacing contributes to a 134-minute runtime that could benefit from tighter editing, particularly within the flashbacks. Still, “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” marks a welcome return for Verbinski. The film revisits themes that have coursed through his earlier work, from rebellion against oppressive forces in “Pirates of the Caribbean” to questions of heroism in “Rango.” Here, he insists the film was made without AI, and the conviction behind that claim is evident in its unruly, handcrafted energy.
