Jay Rohr
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die has everything going for it. There’s a clever concept at its core. The solid cast is led by Sam Rockwell in a quirky role few else could make charming. Director Gore Verbinski at the helm guarantees a certain visual stylishness. That’s what makes it such an intriguing shame so little comes together.
The story starts with Rockwell (Argylle)’s unnamed man from the future bursting into a crowded diner. Claiming to be a time traveler, he assembles a seemingly random assortment of patrons. The conceit being that he’s there to stop the A.I. apocalypse, and the various customers could be the misfit militia he needs. Unfortunately, he hasn’t figured out the right combination of comrades yet, as he insists this isn’t anywhere near his first attempt.
Anyone anticipating a time loop flick featuring Rockwell and company’s comical failures will be disappointed. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die eschews that established convention, pulled off more interestingly in features like Edge of Tomorrow and Palm Springs, in order to simply info dump. Rather than show what could be darkly hilarious defeats, the movie opts to have Rockwell angrily tell the audience what happened.
It’s a fundamental flaw throughout the feature. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die rarely allows the audience to experience its most interesting ideas. Instead, viewers are told through exposition dumps about more fantastical occurrences. The worst instance is the first twelve minutes, an extended monologue explaining the premise in a way that sounds like an angry boomer yelling at teenagers too focused on their phones.
Although Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die has some valid points to make about screen addiction, they also feel ten years too late. Sam Rockwell’s rant comes across like someone shouting the obvious to a person who’s already leapt off a cliff without their parachute. Furthermore, despite a kinetically cut presentation with him running around the diner, engaging with multiple patrons, the segment feels like a yawn inducing sermon rather than the start of an adventure. This might be forgivable if Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die was simply speeding on to grand scenes of epic action. And it does! Kind of.
Following the opening, the narrative turns into an anthology of flashbacks. Each segment explains what brought specific members of the ragtag rebels into the diner. At the same time, there’s an attempt to build a larger story with elaborative fragments full of implication. Bits of plot are delivered throughout segments that seem like a hodgepodge of Outer Limits, Tales from the Crypt, and Black Mirror storytelling. The problem is there’s no mystery in these moments since Rockwell’s role has already explained everything that’s happening.
Left with no tension or purpose, these aren’t clues implying a larger picture so much as lore lard, fattening the story. Whatever cleverness that there could have been is lost by having them essentially explained before building any curiosity. Whenever Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die then returns to its central storyline not much has been added to make matters compelling.
Action occasionally unfolds afterwards. Some of these instances are extremely well put together visually, and there are instances of potentially captivating calamities. The problem is that they never come soon enough, and despite terminating a few characters here or there, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die has no sense of stakes. As a time loop feature, failure is an option since Sam Rockwell’s character can conceivably repeat scenarios endlessly.
Director Gore Verbinski has an excellent history of fabulous looking films. From the first Pirates of the Caribbean to Rango and A Cure for Wellness, his eye for quirky, clever, and slick visuals is no less sharp than past pictures. The script by Matthew Robinson seems full of potential, especially in such skilled hands. However, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die lends credence to the notion that no one really knows how to make a good movie. Every element can seem to be in place, yet the alchemy of entertainment fails to transmute the ingredients into gold.
The cast includes some amazing talent. It would be nice if the script respected their time by giving them more interesting parts to play. Though they have little chemistry, Michael Peña (CHiPS and A Million Miles Away) and Zazie Beetz (The Bad Guys 2) are a couple with the personalities of cardboard trying to be boring. Juno Temple (Roofman) is convincing as a grief-stricken mother doing whatever it takes to undo her loss. Haley Lu Richardson (Love at First Sight and Montana Story) wonderfully plays a part with a twist as shocking as the discovery water is wet.
Sam Rockwell leads the assortment with a gruff performance that occasionally veers into zaniness. He’s clearly meant to be comically exasperated, snapping at his companions who have no idea this is the 117th time they’ve asked a question or proposed a plan that ends in gory doom. While there’s a case to be made that he’s burnt out from repeated horrific defeats, that element of the journey isn’t something the audience ever experiences. As such, he just seems like an abusive pessimist shouting down ideas instead of motivating skeptics to believe in the cause.
Essentially, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is a time loop movie that talks about its loops more than shows them. The action is fairly weak, though there are some amazingly weird moments such as — spoiler warning — the titanic, hauntingly monstrous centaur cat. These often appear after flashback segments that drag on, and whatever boredom is alleviated by the epic madness is like an aspirin overcoming a compound fracture.
Everything is here for an epic movie. Everything is here for a solid two-star film that entertainingly passes the time. Unfortunately, neither exists in the timeline we currently occupy. Most of the humor doesn’t land. Though visually alluring, few scenes are captivating. Worse, the characters aren’t terribly compelling. Until there’s a chance to loop around and help Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die live up to its potential, there’s little reason to see this movie.
