Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
If you are looking for insanely wacky fun, do I have the movie for you. The unapologetically bizarre Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die stars Sam Rockwell as an unnamed man claiming to be from the future who holds a diner full of patrons hostage, with what may or may not be a bomb vest, demanding volunteers for a suicide mission to help him save the world. Along the way, neither director Gore Verbinski nor screenwriter Matthew Robinson will pull any punches as to why this world needs saving.
While spewing vitriol against the dumbing down of the world, an over-reliance on phones and games, and the rise of artificial intelligence, he claims to have traveled to this point in history many times before believing one random assortment of a half-dozen or so people from this diner is what he needs to save the world. And so, on this one night, we learn what one random assortment of people, who slowly begin to believe his story, can accomplish.
Fit inside a sci-fi framework, with a protagonist who knows enough about events and people, but not all variations of what may happen, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die is a leap down the rabbit hole where things will get much crazier before the get any clearer. And they will get crazy (just wait for the cat). I have some mixed opinions to some of the reveals we get along the way, especially the big one at the end which you should see coming, but it's one hell of a journey to get there.
While following the group from the diner to the destination, the film stops at random intervals to fill in the backstory for some of our group. We're shown the state of education through the eyes of Janet (Zazie Beetz) and Mark (Michael Peña) which ends with the pair being chased from the high school by zombified phone-weilding teens. Through Susan (Juno Temple), and her own loss, we learn about the big business of cloning school shooting victims (with some "enhancements" included). And we discover the past of Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson) and why she's found in the dinner looking like a demented princess.
Some of these flashbacks will prove more important than others, with their main purpose to explain a minimum about each character and how each of this group ended up at the diner on this fateful night. Other members include the distrustful Scott (Asim Chaudhry), the stressed-out Marie (Georgia Goodman), and the unlucky Bob (Daniel Barnett).
While leaning heavy into the humor brought about the insanity of the situation the group finds themselves in, and the even crazier things they will witness over the course of a single night, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die doesn't shy away from some genuine dramatic moments along the way. It's a humorous, but rather bleak, view as to where the world is headed (along with landing some pretty spicy shots at AI), while still championing the ingenuity of the human spirit (no matter how weird they might be).
- Title: Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
- IMDb: link
