Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die Movie Review – Sam Rockwell’s Scene-Stealing Performance Anchors This Surrealistic but Overlong Sci-Fi Comedy

Remember Gore Verbinski? Well, he’s back, after spending his time in the “director’s jail” for nine years, thanks to his double-whammy The Lone Ranger and A Cure for Wellness. The latter, which was released in 2016, was the last time Verbinski made a feature film. His comeback film boasts a quirkily titled Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, which sounds like a lost film made by Terry Gilliam during his peak era.

The movie gets off to a promising start: A typically busy restaurant at NORMS in L.A. is interrupted by a man (Sam Rockwell) stepping in and causing a scene. He has no name other than being credited as “the Man from the Future”. He looks unkempt, all with a hobo-style appearance, sporting a grizzled beard and a dirty face. He wears a transparent plastic raincoat, and in it, a bomb-like vest, complete with a trigger in his hand. He can’t stop ranting in front of stunned customers and workers in the restaurant, claiming he comes from the future and arrives back in time to save humanity. No, not from a Terminator, but rather the impending AI doom. Is he one of those delusional lunatics who escaped from the mental asylum? Or perhaps a man who is deeply obsessed with the conspiracy theory related to AI?

His identity is a mystery, and that’s what makes Rockwell’s eccentric character fascinating. His unhinged performance is undeniable, just enough to catch my attention right from the beginning. His motive raises curiosity, as he requires a few people from the restaurant to join him on a resistance mission. Interestingly, he even claims this isn’t his first time coming back to the same restaurant and meeting the same people.

And this time, he manages to pick a ragtag team consisting of an estranged couple, high-school teachers Mark (Michael Peña) and Janet (Zazie Beetz), a lone woman in the restaurant Susan (Juno Temple), Uber driver Scott (Asim Chaudry), and others like the clueless Marie (Georgia Goodman), whose sole intention is simply craving a piece of pie. Then, there’s Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson), looking all dishevelled, dressing like a runaway princess, whom Rockwell’s character reluctantly recruits. The extended opening sequence is engaging, and for a while there, Verbinski’s assured direction, which effective combines intrigue and quirkiness, almost leads me to believe he still has what it takes to craft an entertaining movie.

Too bad, what follows next is rather a hit-and-miss affair as the Man from the Future, along with his recruits are on their way to a specific location while dealing with various obstacles. While I’m expecting some thrilling fun, most of them are strangely underwhelming, especially given the outlandish setup earlier in the movie. Verbinski, working from Matthew Robinson’s screenplay, doesn’t restrict himself in a straightforward mission-focused narrative as the story is soon overlapped with chapters-style introduction of the characters who join the Man from the Future. Their respective backstories, to be exact, namely Mark and Janet’s strange encounter with zombie-like students in the high school who are obsessed with their phones. Here, Verbinski clearly has something to say about the Gen Z compulsive habit of doomscrolling and their overreliance on gluing to their phones as if they are part of their extended bodies.

The story also addresses about Susan, whose background has something to do with her grieving past and how the thematic meshing of AI and a topical subject matter affects her. Personally, the segment revolving around Haley Lu Richardson’s Ingrid interests me the most. Richardson steals the show – apart from Rockwell, that is – here, who perfectly embodies a character that is both frustrating and pessimistic. Her backstory explains why she dresses in a princess costume, and how she despises technology – a result that her deliveryman boyfriend (Tom Taylor) doesn’t share the same sentiment, especially after he becomes hooked on the make-believe world of virtual reality.

The movie’s midsection tends to be erratic, and at times, unnecessarily drawn-out to the point it overstays its welcome. The word “bloated” applies well, with the movie clocking in at a rather lengthy 134 minutes – something that Verbinski’s recurring old habit of a self-indulgent excess that plagued some of his past movies, for better or worse, yes, even his otherwise hugely popular Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die manages to pick up the pace during the bonkers yet surrealistic climax, one of which includes a bizarre appearance. But only to an extent, as the third act overstretches itself for its own good, as if Verbinski can’t find a more cohesive way to wrap up his movie. It’s far from his best movie, given the occasionally distracting flaws. If it wasn’t for Rockwell’s go-for-broke performance and some of the exceptional supporting cast, along with a few of Verbinski’s absorbing set pieces, his latest movie would have been a missed opportunity.

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