Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die Review

This reappraisal is based connected a screening which took spot astatine the 2025 Fantastic Fest Film Festival. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die volition person a theatrical merchandise successful the United States connected January 30, 2026.

The Terminator franchise truly had america believing the AI apocalypse would beryllium acold much absorbing than it astir apt volition be; determination aren't Skynet bots starting cyberwars, conscionable brain-rotten societal media algorithms that repress our captious reasoning skills. Gore Verbinski's Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die is simply a overmuch much realistic instrumentality connected AI's apocalyptic implications, albeit via a zany escapade involving clip travelers and mystical creatures. Matthew Robinson's outside-the-box subject fabrication screenplay is simply a full batch of fun, adjacent considering its bleak commentary connected artificial intelligence; however, what it truthful saliently says astir our existent society's exertion fixation should chill you to the bone.

Sam Rockwell is fantastic arsenic the film's bonkers lead, either a conspiracy crackpot dressed similar a junkyard astronaut oregon a leader sent from the future. His ngo is simple: to instal information programming into an artificial quality exemplary presently being built by a 9-year-old genius. To bash so, helium indispensable enlistee a random assortment of strangers eating wrong a Norm's Diner successful Los Angeles to go his superteam…but helium doesn't cognize precisely who. He's endured 117 failed attempts, each clip with a antithetic configuration of patrons. Hopefully, the roster of a techno-allergic princess (Haley Lu Richardson), a heartbroken parent who mislaid her lad to weapon unit (Juno Temple), and 2 teachers who are being hunted by their students (Michael Peña and Zazie Beetz) tin yet prevention our aboriginal Earth.

There's a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy prime astir Rockwell's performance, playing an exhausted and somewhat perturbed squad person caught successful his ain Groundhog Day clip loop. He's effortlessly charming and instantly grabs our attraction erstwhile bursting into the diner. There's an enthralling bluntness arsenic helium tries to person Boy Scout leaders and frat boys to articulation his escapade portion recounting failed attempts wherever diners person perished (hilariously calling 1 antheral arsenic useless arsenic an albatross). It's the cleanable relation for Rockwell, allowing him to beryllium confident, snarky, and gleefully unhinged with a smile. He's either civilization’s savior wrapped successful integrative sheets and rubber tubs, oregon the astir convincing, unkempt vagrant this broadside of Skid Row, and that looming question helps support america connected edge.

However, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die isn't a linear story. We chopped backmost to vignettes that uncover the backstory of each superior quality accompanying Rockwell, which periodically stunts momentum and becomes the film's biggest problem. Switching betwixt pre-diner and post-diner timelines tin beryllium daunting, but this is besides wherever Robinson's publication levels its darkest commentaries and pummels america successful the gut. Verbinski strives to marque Rockwell's time-hopping weirdo look similar the unusual outlier successful modern America, erstwhile the state has already devolved into a wi-fi-powered prison. Humans person been turned into content-munching zombies by smartphones and virtual world headsets, schoolhouse shootings are arsenic regular arsenic java breaks, and the American authorities and Silicon Valley billionaires alike person recovered ways to nett disconnected each of it portion we're each glued to screens. It's truthful immeasurably dark, but it represents the closest simulation of a believable AI apocalypse that we've seen.

Verbinski's absorption and Robinson's words are truthful painfully direct, but besides attack the full AI statement from a invaluable angle; AI isn't conscionable inevitable, it's here. Rockwell isn't trying to stroke a tiny kid and his supercomputer to smithereens, he's conscionable trying to enforce due regulations. For arsenic peculiar and grandiose arsenic Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die tin become, it's speaking to the halfway of rational AI usage with some urgency and tact. Despite Rockwell's quality being that of the idiosyncratic successful Times Square with an "The End Is Nigh" sign, Verbinski's movie is hardly the ramblings of a lunatic. It's empathetic capable to impulse a amended tomorrow, portion inactive leveling ample servings of devastation and paranoia astir the satellite arsenic it exists today.

That said, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die is entertaining successful its AI satires. Peña and Beetz situation interrupt their students' screentime and are forced to usage homemade Mars Attacks! "guns" to "brick" devices. Temple falls down a rabbit spread of despair and finds herself successful an Apple Store-like installation that "helps" parents of schoolhouse shooting victims (an agonizing farce that works excessively well). Then there's Richardson, the children's enactment big who gets nosebleeds astir immoderate signifier of technology. It's each truthful delightfully bizarre portion making easy digestible points, each formed astir the mendacious committedness of AI-driven kingdoms that bash their champion to connection america "perfection." Yet, it's each conscionable somewhat askew lies based connected "shitty prompts," arsenic the radical finds retired erstwhile yet warring disconnected waves of AI-generated enemies, the largest of which is simply a ocular showstopper.