By Chris Sawin
| Published 1 hour ago

Norm’s Diner. Los Angeles. 10:10 pm. A bearded man (Sam Rockwell), covered head-to-toe in a clear pancho and tangled with tubes, wires, motherboards, and a bomb detonator, stomps into the diner. He takes bites from a few unsuspecting people’s entrees before exclaiming, “I’m from the future, and everything is about to go horribly, horribly wrong!”

Claiming to have returned to this precise diner at this exact moment 117 times previously, this man from the future is looking for volunteers. Half of humanity perishes in the future, while the other half becomes hopelessly obsessed with their phones and social media. A.I. has finally taken over the world, and this man knows the secret to saving it, and it all has to be done on this very night.

“Like a choose-your-own-adventure book where all the options have been selected.”

With more than a little convincing, seven volunteers go on a mission to save humanity’s future. Some will knowingly not make it until the end of the night, but Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die dives into the backstory of a few of these diner patrons who no longer have anything to lose.

Mark (Michael Pena) and Janet (Zazie Beetz) are a romantic couple and both teachers, on the rocks. Mark is a substitute teacher who lands a job at the same school where Janet teaches. The problem is that teachers at this school keep disappearing while the students never get off their phones. Mark questions this and accidentally touches one of the students’ phones, which doesn’t end well for anyone.

Susan (Juno Temple) is the mother of a high school student named Darren (Riccardo Drayton). Darren dies unexpectedly after falling victim to a mass shooting, and Ingrid’s life loses all meaning. She’s introduced to a store that clones mass shooting victims, but the clone’s flaws keep their nearly flawless physical appearance from feeling authentic.

Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson) has lived her whole life with an allergy to wifi and cell phones. Doctors said it wasn’t a real disease, but she gets nosebleeds and can’t function properly whenever she’s around technology or basically goes anywhere outside of the house. Ingrid met a pizza delivery driver named Tim (Tom Taylor), who didn’t believe in using cell phones or having any attachment to technology. The two moved in together and lived a frugal yet content life until one day, when a VR headset was left on their doorstep for Tim. Tim becomes so obsessed with virtual reality that he prefers it to this one, even though the so-called love of his life isn’t in it.

“A.I. is inescapable, and humanity’s only choice is to try to cater to its good side.”

Gore Verbinski has never shied away from going super weird in his previous films, but Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die takes the bizarre cake. The film is defined as a sci-fi action-adventure comedy, but its humor is perhaps the most unusual aspect. The film’s grasp of how social media and A.I. have a death grip on society is terrifying, given how much we rely on and are addicted to them today. There’s a dark, erratic tone to the film’s comedy that is amusing because it comes off as almost genuine. The biggest takeaway is that A.I. is inescapable, and humanity’s only choice is to try to cater to its good side.

Sam Rockwell has the commanding presence of a man who partially gives a shit. He intends to save everyone he can, but the people in this diner are expendable. If it doesn’t work out, he’s the only one who can hit the reset button and start over. So some of his actions may seem cruel on the surface, but he also knows everyone at this point almost as well as they know themselves. Rockwell is as scene-stealing as ever here, but half of his charm is how he bounces off the rest of the talented and mesmerizing ensemble.

It’s also interesting to witness how every volunteer reacts to the upcoming apocalypse. Mark and Janet are filled with panic, an Uber driver named Scott (Asim Chaudhry) doubts that this “Man from the Future” and anything he says is actually true, a scoutmaster named Bob (Daniel Barnett) volunteers solely with the intention of being a hero, Ingrid has a strange sense of acceptance, and Susan is cooperative but has an ulterior motive.

Even the characters that die along the way are a form of loss. Sam Rockwell’s “Man from the Future” is shoehorned into this representation of hope. He wants to save humanity, but he also wants to get to the point where he doesn’t have to repeat this night again for the 118th time and beyond. He watches everyone die, and everything crumbles around him. This is purgatory for him; he is basically Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. He is a symbol of hope, but also broken in his own way. Panic, doubt, heroism, acceptance, conniving, loss, and hope; it’s like the seven stages of grief but somehow more futile.

“Worth seeing for its exceptional performances, its catawampus narrative, and its hopelessly hopeless take on a dystopian future.”

The story takes wildly peculiar turns, even for a film where the future is determined, but how it gets there is a question mark. There is a CGI creature buried within the second half of the film that has an absolutely gonzo design and also puts full-frontal nudity to insane use. The movie’s nonlinear storytelling is all over the place, but where the film takes the audience isn’t entirely unexpected. Visually, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is a bananas smorgasbord and a shotgun blast to the face of craziness. But narratively, it feels like the film is deeper or more unique than it actually is.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is like a choose-your-own-adventure book where all the options have been selected, and all the different scenarios are playing out at once in the same timeline. The film is worth seeing for its exceptional performances, its catawampus narrative, and its hopelessly hopeless take on a dystopian future. The lack of actual laughs and the inability to fully satisfy what it introduces are what hinder Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die from being a pure, unhinged masterpiece.

GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON’T DIE REVIEW SCORE

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is now playing in theaters.