MOVIE REVIEW: Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die ~ FILMYWAPAS

Images courtesy of Vertical Entertainment

GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON’T DIE— 2 STARS

Fifty-two minutes into Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, one of the frazzled characters in a potpourri posse of handpicked Los Angelinos working with a nutty man claiming to be from the future responds to a choice in the frankest way possible. The bold woman says:

“I don’t really care either way. I just want to see where this goes.”

At this point, where everyone assembled has already been through a wringer and a half in a short period of time, the pivot point in question feels like the sixth or seventh opportunity to exit the pickle they’re in. And yet, this particular woman is sticking it out. The question then becomes whether viewers can reply with the same lack of exhaustion or tenuousness. Not everyone can or will with Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die.

Now, what’s going where? Well, that’s the kick of Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. One man says he knows without ever actually accomplishing what he is setting out to do. Audiences will need to riff with one of the best to ever riff, and find their way through a maze of escalating weirdness.

When the clock strikes 10:10pm on a random night, an unnamed and oddly armored man (Academy Award winner Sam Rockwell) announces his presence at a classic Norm’s Diner on La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood, a stone’s throw from Beverly Hills. He presents himself as a time-traveler sent back in time to prevent an apocalyptic future of societal collapse. His rant on complicity tears into the gathered citizens about the unheeded warnings of social media, the rise of A.I., and the erosion of critical thinking. As loopy as he appears to be, he’s onto something.

LESSON #1: WHAT WOULD IT TAKE TO LISTEN?--- Expectedly, this loudmouthed vagrant has everyone flustered as they’re trying to enjoy a late night cheap eats meal. Plenty tune him out, hoping he gives up and goes away, but here’s the wrinkle. He knows everyone in this busy restaurant by name and tosses out personal details proving that very knowledge. Would that uncanny development, surging beyond mere coincidence, make you listen to a man like that? The ballsy honesty and scare tactics he’s doing should be enough.

Spewing out the stakes, he reveals his mission to stop a 9-year-old kid from finishing the coding that creates the “post-singularity, self-perpetuating, information processing artificial intelligence” that brings the world down by installing safety software before it can gain consciousness. As it turns out, this is the 117th time our man has gone back in time to this Norm’s to select the correct configuration of people to accomplish his quest. Moreover, no one chosen has ever lived through his attempts. Wildly enough, he gets a first taker and, soon, five more.

The final addition is someone the traveller has never chosen in the previous 116 tries. She’s a woman named Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson) in streaked makeup and a disheveled princess dress costume who is allergic to nearby technology. Stressing that trait, she feels like “The One” with fate written all over her, thanks to a shift of Geoff Zanelli’s musical score and new framing from cinematographer James Whitaker. After all, she’s the one that drops that zinger line at the 52-minute mark.

By the time all that shakes out, Rockwell’s character declares “Tonight, we got a shot,” and the title card announces Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die with a studio audience sound effect akin to the introduction of a Wheel of Fortune episode. Helmed by the former Pirates of the Caribbean franchise king, Gore Verbinski, directing his first film in nine years, this movie is primed to follow this guy anywhere. Sam Rockwell’s loquacious personality is, as usual, a special kind of hilarity that few can keep up with. The man can sell lunacy by presence alone. All of that would be great, if the movie didn’t start to rewind and grind some of its wacky momentum to a halt.

LESSON #2: TRY CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AS YOU GO— The screenplay from Matthew Robinson (The Invention of Lying), Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die begins a series of flashbacks that detail how different members of the motley crew careened through life before walking into that Norm’s. Starting with the teacher duo of Mark and Janet (experienced action comedy vets Michael Pena and Zazie Beetz) and continuing with the distraught mother Susan (Juno Temple) of a school shooting victim (a subject a little too real to make fun of in a comedy) and, eventually, Ingrid, these backstories count as character development. However, they are not short sidebars, similar to something like Quentin Tarantino’s effusive reveals in The Hateful Eight. The long tangents fluctuate with pertinent interest and necessity to the greater arc. Much of this could have been accomplished with shorthand on the go without the long asides.

LESSON #3: DON’T JUST STAND THERE— Likewise, for a movie feigning a higher authority for intelligence and time importance, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die repeatedly falls for one of the dumbest fails in cinema as a crutch to generate suspense. At no less than a half-dozen crucial moments, Verbinski and Robinson have characters doing that classic movie trope of stopping and looking when they could keep moving or escape. The “don’t just stand there” stupidity is maddening at times, which ruins some of the loftier and more creative commentary being melted into this movie.

Hopscotching like this in a nearly rudderless way, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die hinges on committing to the curiosity of Ingrid’s aforementioned bold line. Doing so accepts a bumpy ride chock full of cockamamie ideas. That roller coaster can also eject others from the vehicle entirely. Most of the clues from the backstories only add to the incomplete confusion of everyone’s one-wild-night journey. In the end, what is more interesting? Is it the past that made these loose characters, or the future that was foretold to open the movie? One could beg it’s the latter and not the former. The messy hodgepodge of it all feels random for randomness’s sake, and the character behaviors too often match that ridiculousness rather than win you over.