Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die ★★★

The world is on the brink of destruction and the only people who can save humanity are sitting in Norm’s Diner in Los Angeles. At least, that is what a man (Sam Rockwell) claims when he walks into the crowded diner. He looks disheveled and is wearing a strange outfit. He claims to be a time traveler from the future and to have a bomb strapped to his chest, which he will use unless he is given a chance to explain himself and, hopefully, recruit a team of the diner’s patrons to accompany him on a mission to save the world. Director Gore Verbinski unleashes Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die with this barnburner of an opener. Daringly original and featuring plenty of bold choices, Verbinski’s film is one best experienced cold. It does not all work with Verbinski tossing everything he can think of on the screen, but to see a film this unusual is a real treat and it is the kind of original filmmaking seen far too rarely nowadays.

This terrific opening scene finds this time traveler delivering a spiel geared towards recruiting his crack team of world savers. He has delivered this speech, according to him, 117 times. To prove himself, he offers some evidence to the customers with obscure facts about some of them – such as one of them having Groundhog Day as their favorite movie, an apt reference for his experiences – while the time traveler quickly unravels. He casts aside the showmanship he leaned on initially and begins showing some of the more jaded side of himself. Experience has taught him who can and cannot help him from this diner, leading to some very humorous rejections of potential team members who he has past negative attempts with. This time, he goes a bit wild, hoping that going against his instincts will help put together a winning combination. He picks the volunteering Susan (Juno Temple) for the first time, grabs married couple Janet (Zazie Beetz) and Mark (Michael Peña), a few others by force, and then finally Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson), a woman dressed in a princess costume who he initially rejects again until some supernatural force intervenes to tell him to take her too. This could be the team of diner patrons who saves the world. Or it may not be and this traveler will be back in the diner for the 118th time.

Irreverent, madcap, and sometimes quite macabre, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is an often surreal experience. The main narrative thrust is held in this adventure story with the time traveler and his team of heroes having to make their way from this diner to the home of a 9 year-old boy who is, according to the time traveler, busy creating the AI that will take over the world and lead humanity into a bleak future. Verbinski borrows liberally from decades of science fiction works with plenty of credit owed to The Terminator, The Matrix, Twelve Monkeys, Miracle Mile, and more. It is, naturally, not as easy as going from the diner to this child’s house with plenty of issues along the way on this classic hero’s journey. From cops to hired killers, a homeless man with a machete, and some final boss that the time traveler says is different every time, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is a blast where one truly never knows what insane event will befall this group of travelers next. Sam Rockwell is a force with his deadpan comedic delivery, exuding the skepticism his time traveler has about this group’s chances of succeeding and the often disaffected nature he has needed to adopt to survive this harsh lifestyle. He is perfectly cast and delivers plenty of laughs, but also plenty of heart, especially as the story develops.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die really goes all-out creatively in its climax, a moment in an AI-created fantasy world is a real highlight, while that final boss is nightmare fuel and may be a bit too much (particularly due to an added appendage and feature). Some added references to Toy Story’s creepy toys and some incredible special effects with computer wires and a gigantic screen drop the audience into this terrifying world being coded by this small boy. It is a truly awe-inspiring and incredibly imaginative work, a descent into Verbinski’s wacky and unwieldy mind with plenty of the wildest ideas sticking and playing like gangbusters. There are some well-timed jokes and physical humor to cut through the tension, but this climax is a haunting one. This is a fun and often silly film, but one with a serious message and a warning for all viewers: we are all distracted. Lost in our phones and disconnected from our communities, AI has creeped into our lives and has slowly taken over various elements of daily existence, so seamlessly that one can hardly remember life before AI was ubiquitous. Its main function is to serve us a vision of a world that has us satisfied, whether it is real or not, all while it grows in power and knowledge, infesting itself like an invasive species into every facet of life.

As the adventure story progresses, Verbinski works in flashbacks to the lives of Susan, Mark and Janet, and Ingrid before the film began. This has the negative side effect of adding to the narrative and thematic bloat of Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die and stunting some of the flow in the adventure story, but these stories are so wild that this bit of indulgence is mostly appreciated. Verbinski never plays it safe narratively or thematically, biting off as much as he can chew on with sociological and technological themes, spinning them into a chaotic web that may be dark and complex, but is not as removed from our present reality as much as one would hope. Whether it is Susan’s experience as the grieving mother of a school shooting victim (with some overtures to Invasion of the Body Snatchers), Mark and Janet’s Mars Attacks! and Village of the Damned inspired encounter with a hypnotized hivemind of high schoolers, or the wi-fi and technology allergic Ingrid’s experience losing her boyfriend Tim (Tom Taylor) to virtual reality, these stories add to Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die add to its unwieldy scope but also deliver their own pleasures and thought-provoking edges. Susan’s is perhaps the most risky, but it is often the funniest section of the film. In all though, Verbinski paints a satirical version of our world that is not as removed from reality or the realm of possibility as one would like.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is an often insane journey. It will be a divisive film, in large part due to how wacky it can get. It takes some big swings thematically and narratively, not all of which work and it does often bite off more than it can chew. However, Gore Verbinski never plays it safe and he creates this madcap science fiction adventure with every ounce of creativity he can muster, wearing his influences proudly, then re-working them into a truly unique package. It is a fantastic time at the movies, carrying with it plenty of straight-up entertainment and plenty of ideas about the state of our world that leaves one pouring over every detail after it ends. Sam Rockwell is terrific, while Haley Lu Richardson plays Ingrid with real soulful fire that draws one into her increasingly defiant and confident in this journey and Juno Temple steals scenes with her timid yet strong mother, nailing the big emotional scenes for Susan as well as the subtler emotion as she struggles in the wake of her son’s death then finds purpose in fulfilling this urgent quest to save humanity. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is a film that has be seen to be believed.