Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die – Review

Cert – 15, Run-time – 2 hours 14 minutes, Director – Gore Verbinski

Attempt 117: ‘The Man From The Future’ (Sam Rockwell) enters Norm’s Diner and assembles another group of strangers to take down the AI force that leads to the robot apocalypse, due to be created in one hour a few blocks away.

Sam Rockwell, donning a mixture of metal and plastic like a worn out toy with its mechanisms exposed, jumps from table to table in Norm’s Diner trying to rouse just a few of the 40+ people trying to enjoy a quiet evening into joining him to fight the imminent AI apocalypse – being created just a few blocks away. This is his 117th attempt and he appears to be assembling his most ragtag ensemble yet amongst monologues which (if you remove the f-bombs) sound as if they could easily come from the mouth of modern-day Lisa Simpson.

Lisa’s Flanderised preaching comes to mind a couple of times in director Gore Verbinski’s latest. Whether sequences about teenagers becoming zombies, obeying every command from the phones their eyes are constantly glued to, or people trying to find more immersive ways of entering virtual realities beyond their headsets much of what we see throughout Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die feels at least two or three years out of date. Matthew Robinson’s screenplay was initially intended as a TV pilot entitled Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30, almost telling you everything you need to know about the film, yet on realising there wasn’t enough for a series he added more characters and tangents and formed the screenplay for the film.

Despite strands being added after the decision to go from TV to film, each vignette has the feeling of something originally intended to be played out in more detail on the small screen. When placed into the film, with only the clear focal characters/ starry names getting their own vignettes the rest are clearly expendables for the mission of Rockwell’s character, simply named ‘The Man From The Future’. Alongside an outdated feeling there’s also a sense of overfamiliarity to the beats being travelled. While not unoriginal the film doesn’t quite live up to the promise of posters and trailers that this is “from completely unhinged Gore Verbinski.”

There are occasionally interesting moments amongst the attempts at weirdness – one particular set of shots involving a suddenly-appearing towering are genuinely creepy but appear to have nothing done with them aside from being there for a brief patch of weirdness before moving on completely as if nothing happened. It’s a case for much of the film as much of what we see only feels lightly referenced later or simply a repetitious set of events from other films and series. It means that the likes of Juno Temple and Haley Lu Richardson don’t get the impactful moments that their characters, and the film, perhaps want.

The third act finds a stride that works and manages to bring amusement into the proceedings, even if very late in the day. Things are loud and undoubtedly chaotic, but manage to find more solid grounding as action starts to properly become the focus amongst the greater stakes; rather than a vein to see things through with occasional attempts at chuckles. Attempts at laughs tend to fall flat through much of the film as, like the surroundings, they feel tired and simply lacking in a major engaging push. Throughout Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die I sat watching it unfold in a slightly preachy manner about our relationship with our phones, AI and wider technology.

Yet, with that aside perhaps the film’s biggest issue is that it all feels rather dull. Not properly kicking in with a full sense of interest until the third act, where it even still manages to be predictable. It all feels a bit reheated rather than the weird and unhinged labels that it seems to be batting for. In trying to be timely it’s found itself as a piece for a few years ago rather than now, and even then one lacking some punch and full engagement power in its various on-the-nose vignettes and progressions towards the home where the AI is being created.

A drawn-out, already outdated-feeling sci-fi comedy that stumbles when it comes to its self-proclaimed unhinged nature. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die doesn’t properly kick in until its third act, by which times its overlong run-time has been made clear in the various tangents.