The director of "Pirates of the Caribbean," Gore Verbinski, returns with a bang with a provocative sci-fi comedy that can't decide whether to save or scold society.
A man walks into a diner wearing a clear plastic raincoat, mismatched shoes, and what looks like an explosive vest. He claims to be from the future, sent back in time to save humanity from the imminent and inevitable rise of artificial intelligence. This disheveled evangelist is played by Sam Rockwell as a wide-eyed character in the style of many Terry Gilliam characters (think Robin Williams in "The Fisher King" or Bruce Willis in "12 Monkeys"), who makes you wonder, "Is he crazy, or is he the only sane one here?" He's a rambling prophet, the kind who wears one shoe of each color and smells like garbage, searching for heroes to avert the apocalypse.
Director: Gore Verbinski
Writer: Matthew Robinson
Stars: Sam Rockwell, Zazie Beetz, Haley Lu Richardson
What are the odds that this kook will find the perfect combination of soldiers and suckers for his mission among the late-night clientele of one of Los Angeles' timeless-looking Norms diners? "This is all going to go horribly wrong!" he shouts, referring to life as we know it, while gesturing to a diner full of eccentrics, most engrossed in their smartphones at the expense of human connection. His skepticism is perfectly understandable (we feel it too, as you'd have to be a little crazy to follow a leader like that), but the film leaves no doubt: Rockwell's Man from the Future really is from the future.
The raucous return of "Pirates of the Caribbean" director Gore Verbinski (after nearly a decade away from directing) with "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die" is a brazenly irreverent and wildly inventive take on the time loop trope, a kind of "Terminator 2: Groundhog Day," only here, Rockwell's bewildered protagonist knows what it takes to stop the cycle. He just hasn't come anywhere close to achieving it in the 117 attempts he's made so far.
This guy has tried so many combinations of the available characters, but something feels different this time. For starters, a woman he’s never recruited before volunteers for the first time: Susan (Juno Temple), whose backstory and motivations will be revealed in one of several vignettes that flash back in time. Plus, a cosmic indicator suggests he should also include Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson), a nihilistic millennial with smudged makeup and a worn-out blue princess dress, though her self-destructive energy terrifies him. The Man from the Future is clear: sacrifices must be made, not everyone will survive, but nothing less than the fate of humanity is at stake.
Eccentric yet charismatic, this apocalyptic team captain recruits five other diners to complete his group, including professors Mark and Janet (Michael Peña and Zazie Beetz), a disheveled Boy Scout leader (Daniel Barnett), and two unpredictable characters (Asim Chaudhry and Dominique Maher), at least one of whom doesn’t live long enough to warrant a backstory. Much of the comedy comes from Rockwell’s exaggerated impatience with the people he’s trying to save. That remote control he has strapped to his vest? It’s not a detonator, but a reset button that transports him back to the moment he entered Norms (or so he claims).
If “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” sounds like a video game, that’s no accident. The title echoes dialogue between characters in “Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate,” while “Mass Effect 2” also begins with assembling a team to save the world. From “The cake is a lie” to “There is no future,” Matthew Robinson’s hyper-referential script is full of nods to gamers. Or, to take it a step further, the film invites us to question whether its reality is actually a simulation, drawing on Elon Musk’s theory that the two will be indistinguishable in the future. It must be admitted that it's curious how the characters' comments influence each iteration, similar to how ChatGPT's prompts do.
Never predictable (or conventional) in his choices, "MouseHunt" creator Verbinski has been sorely missed. It takes a virtuoso of his caliber to execute the film's intricate imagination, on par with "Everything Everywhere All at Once," although the genius behind the ideas here is actually Robinson. The writer's peculiar, provocative satire includes the meme-ready, glitter-shooting equivalent of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from "Ghostbusters"; a service that clones the victims of frequent school shootings; and a horde of device-addicted teenagers (true Midwich Cuckoos) who mindlessly repeat, "Thank you for your service," to anyone.
While Rockwell's co-stars are interchangeable by design, it's hard to imagine the film working with another actor in his role. Even so, it feels almost paradoxical to watch a film that warns us about the dangers of screens, even if the extravagant, "Akira"-esque climax makes the rogue AI seem genuinely dangerous. "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die" once again trots out the cliché of the all-powerful bald child whom people are trying to protect or destroy (the mission here is simply to install security protocols on the self-generating AI). Interestingly, after the consecutive failures of "The Lone Ranger" and "A Cure for Wellness," this risky project represents a chance at redemption for Verbinski. If it doesn't work out, there's always next time.
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