Gore Verbinski’s newest film, “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die,” opens in a diner on what seems like an ordinary morning. Then a man from the future (Sam Rockwell) bursts in, warning everyone in the diner that AI has taken over the world. No one looks up from their phones. The man from the future threatens to blow everyone up, quickly gathering their attention. He’s failed and repeated this mission a hundred times and needs their help to assemble the perfect team to stop the AI before it happens.
Matthew Robinson, the writer, and Verbinski use the absurd premise to criticize our current relationship with technology. In the world of the film, school shootings happen very often, to the point of habituation. Parents whose children die in shootings simply clone them and move on. The kids consume endless TikTok videos of AI-generated slop. The tone is darkly comedic and absurd, yet I relate to it. With the ever-growing presence of AI in our lives and the dependence on technology, this future feels closer than it should.
When the man from the future asks who’s willing to help, only Susan (Juno Temple) volunteers. With limited time and police surrounding the diner, he has to randomly choose the rest of the team based on his previous failed attempts. He grabs a teacher couple, Mark (Michael Peña) and Janet (Zazie Beetz), along with Ingrid (Hayley Lu Richardson) and Scott (Asim Chaudhry). Each of the characters, besides Scott, experiences a flashback. The high school teachers are dealing with the rapidly increasing use of technology in class and teachers mysteriously disappearing on “sabbatical.” Ingrid is allergic to phones and technology and watched her boyfriend lose himself to VR. Susan’s son was recently killed in a school shooting. She got a cloned replacement, which includes ads each day. The flashbacks explain why each person might save humanity, but the film’s momentum grinds to a halt each time we cut away from Rockwell.
The film snaps back to life the moment we return to Rockwell. His manic, exhausted energy creates urgency. The team jokes and doubts him until he drops personal details he couldn’t possibly know without having lived this day hundreds of times. The mission is finally revealed to be stopping a 9-year-old boy from coding the fall of mankind. The absurdity of stopping a little kid becomes something unsettling. Masked shooters hunt them through a parking garage, and the film finds its rhythm again: chaotic and darkly funny.
Verbinski does not shy away from wearing his influences on his sleeve. Rockwell’s time loop feels very similar to Bill Murray’s “Groundhog Day.” The AI threat and a warrior from the future remind me of James Cameron’s “The Terminator.” In lesser hands, this would feel derivative. But Verbinski’s execution is creative enough to justify the borrowing. The film isn’t just about AI taking over; it’s a warning about our tech addiction, and the darkly comedic tone makes it feel urgent rather than preachy.
“Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” is hilarious and genuinely unsettling, serving as a warning about a not-so-distant future. Rockwell fully commits to the absurdity, wearing a poncho and wires strapped all over his body. The story is unpredictable, so go in blind if you can. My theater laughed from start to finish. When the credits rolled, I wanted more – not because the film feels incomplete, but because Verbinski has created a world I’m not ready to leave despite its eerie familiarity.
Final Verdict: Go See In Theaters (4.5/5)
Junior Ranon Travers is a Staff Writer. His email is rtravers@fandm.edu.