A 2025 indie that wowed festivalgoers but, as is so often the case, made little impression on mainstream audiences. The film was patterned after EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022) in tone and style, offering a comedic sci-fi treatment of some very serious contemporary themes. As directed by PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN’s Gore Verbinski, it’s entertaining enough, but I say the film could have done with a more serious, and focused, treatment.
GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON’T DIE (2025) Trailer
The opening scenes of GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON’T DIE (a title that was evidently meant to be far catchier than it is) are promising. They feature a bearded nut (Sam Rockwell) dressed in plastic sheeting and strapped with what he claims is a bomb, bursting into a Hollywood based Norm’s restaurant late one night and announcing he’s from the future.
The Man from the Future becomes the game master to a motley crew of goofballs selected, seemingly at random, from the restaurant’s cell phone addled patronage. The object of TMftF’s quest: a nine year old genius (Artie Wilkinson-Hunt) who’s about to create an artificial intelligence that’s fated to destroy humanity. Reaching the kid turns out to be quite a challenge, as in true role playing game fashion quite a few roadblocks—homicidal cops, a pair of gun-toting goofballs, a giant cat monster, etc.—are created by a rogue AI intent on stopping TMftF and his charges.
Haley Lu Richardson, Juno Temple, Sam Rockwell
Along the way we get flashbacks detailing the recent lives of four of the participants. Janet and Mark (Michael Peña and Zazie Beetz) are teachers in a school whose students are being turned into zombies by a malignant cell phone signal; Susan (Juno Temple) is a traumatized mother who has a cloning service create a replica of her deceased son, ending up with a severely creepy, inhuman boy; and Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson), a young woman allergic to electric signals whose boyfriend Tim (Tom Taylor) is growing increasingly addicted to virtual reality. All those things figure into the climax, which occurs at the genius kid’s house and involves snake-like wires and homicidal toys.
Gore Verbinski has a strong instinct for kinetic pacing and an eye for breakneck action (resulting in some surprisingly intense violence), and cinematographer James Whitaker (THANK YOU FOR SMOKING) provides crisp eye-pleasing visuals on a limited budget. The film is never less than eminently watchable, and boasts some strong performances (with Haley Lu Richardson as Ingrid being the surprise standout). What it’s not is economical (134 minutes is far too long a runtime) or cohesive, with a screenplay that offers up many provocative real world conceptions—cell phone addiction, the rise of AI, etc.—that, as ensured by the relentlessly jokey tone, are never explored with much depth.
Michael Pena
“Sampling” is an accurate description of how screenwriter Matthew Robinson (THE INVENTION OF LYING) utilizes his conceptions. Time travel, AI and virtual reality are the major subjects, none of which manage to fully penetrate due to a script that plays like THE TERMINATOR meets GROUNDHOG DAY meets THE MATRIX meets NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD but never coalesces; we don’t even learn who the true protagonist is until the final twenty minutes. Those scenes attempt to tie everything together, but fail because Verbinski can’t seem to decide how to conclude the film, this being a movie that seems to end several times before it actually does.
Vital Statistics
GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON’T DIE
Briarcliff Entertainment/Constantin Film/Blind Wink Productions/3 Arts Entertainment
Director: Gore Verbinski
Producers: Denis Chamian, Robert Kujlzer, Oliver Obst, Erwin Stoff
Screenplay: Matthew Robinson
Cinematography: James Whitaker
Editing: Craig Wood
Cast: Sam Rockwell, Juno Temple, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Peña, Zazie Beetz, Asim Chaundhry, Tom Taylor, Georgia Goodman, Daniel Barnett, Artie Wilkinson-Hunt, Riccardo Drayton, Dominique Maher, David Sturzaker, Adam Burton, Elly Condron, Meghan Oberholzer, Berenice Barbier, Tanya van Graan