Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die Movie Review

​This is a damn good dark sci-fi comedy.

In what turns out to be one of strangest sci-fi films I’ve seen in a long time, very welcomed, by the way, a man from the future, played by Sam Rockwell looking and sounding bonkers to all who see him, runs into an L.A. diner and tells the patrons that “All of this (referring to the electronics everyone currently holds in their hands) goes horribly wrong.” Nothing is wrong with the film, however. It’s a gem. I feel the need to mention that because Good Luck remembering the title. Do, though, because you need to take yourself to the theater the night it releases. You’ll Have Fun! See it early, so you don’t die before you get a chance to see what director Gore Verbinski has in store for you, which is a uniquely fascinating time.  

He has traveled through time to prevent the apocalypse. His proclamation is that people are all robbed of their dignity, turned practically into children with no critical thinking skills anymore… mostly because we’ve given up on wanting or needing them. The desire for convenience overcomes everything else, even to our own detriment. Human beings aren’t interested in anything but electronics, and what becomes of us isn’t good. He has come to tell us that our future looks bleak, and it’s all our fault.

But with the help of the people in the restaurant, he chose to run into, maybe the future can be changed. He claims he has come from the future into this very establishment, looking for the right people to work together on the combination needed to set things straight again. This storyline is similar to exceptional sci-fi movies such as “The Terminator,” “The Matrix,” “Everything, Everywhere All at Once,” and “Idiocracy.” What’s good about those movies will be found here. Their influence enhances what’s delivered with this Gore Verbinski film, which is damn good, both comical and dark, where it needs to be. It’s about a world that could take place in our lifetimes if we don’t do something. It’s somewhat silly, but not too corny, phony, or out of reach. We can see, smell, and taste the destruction of our lives if we don’t grasp what we are allowing to happen to this world, too much technology. The Terminator has super soldiers out to get us. In The Matrix, we’re controlled by the internet, and this film dives in much deeper, giving us characters willing to “plug in” and die in order to live inside the computer, becoming part of a game instead of living what they think of as terrible lives in the real world if they’re not playing an online game. A clear message is that social media is finishing us off. We can stop it.

I needed this. The story, the performances, we’ve all been waiting for this movie for a long time. It’s warning us about our future if we don’t do something about the tech that we’ve become addicted to. We must remove ourselves from it soon. There is so much to this, but I don’t want to give the entire plot away. Discovery is best left for the moments you watch this movie unfold at the theater.

Juno Temple is superb, so follow her storyline closely. The movie is fun and quirky, and it makes fun of AI in a relatable way; it’s turning the world to sh*t, and people are even becoming allergic to it! The end could have been better, but it works along with the remarkable cinematography and score. It keeps your interest throughout. It’s very well structured, very clever, and Rockwell is red hot! It’s a movie to see more than once because it will be, without a doubt, one of the top films of 2026.