Today, we’re checking out Gore Verbinski’s new independent movie “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die”. I’ve been looking forward to this ever since I watched the trailer several months back. This is a black comedy/sci-fi movie about a time travelers attempts to prevent the AI Apocalypse. Verbinski, a vocal anti-AI advocate (Which goes a little with the theme here) directs and Matthew Robinson provides the script. Cinematography is by James Whitaker and Geoff Zanelli provides the music. It’s interesting to note Robinson’s script was knocking around for a while until producers at 3 Arts Entertainment realized recent developments in artificial intelligence had create a sweet spot for this kind of music and jumpstarted the film into production. The movie stars Sam Rockwell with support from Juno Temple, Harley Lu Richardson, Michael Peña, Zazie Beetz and Asim Chaudhry.
Arriving at a Los Angeles diner at 10:10pm, a mysterious man from the future appears to hold the restaurant hostage with a call to recruit a team of heroes to save the future. At first no one believes him, especially with the ridiculous outfit he is wearing, but he claims to have a bomb he can trigger at any time so they listen. He reveals information about each of them he shouldn’t have any knowledge of including predicting what they may say. Still, most are reluctant to join. After a couple of volunteers he picks the remaining team himself and the mission can begin. He warns them, it will be dangerous, confusing and they won’t all make it. He should know, this is his 117th attempt and all previous ones failed.
Attempt 117
Right out the gate this movie is a whole load of fun. But before I dive in, I want to take a moment to compliment the trailers for this film too. The trailer focused on the diner opening, but gave little away. Yet, I wanted to see this as soon as I saw the trailer. So, good work there. Anyway, the diner scene is a strong start. The premise is laid out, there’s a reasonable amount of comedy, and an entire groundhog day style section. Not that we see the timeline repeat. It’s more like that scene late on in Groundhog day where Bill Murray realizes he knows everyone around him intimately. The scene plays out well.Right up until he selects his team, you are somewhat guessing who will join him. The only exception is the depressed woman in the Princess outfit (Richardson’s “Ingrid”). She was clearly always coming.
That also ties in to the one, sort-of negative of the movie. There is a twist involving Ingrid that I saw coming a mile off. That said, this didn’t impact my enjoyment one bit and she was probably my favorite character of the team. The assembled team are all entertaining, though some are more relevant than others. Four of them are given a backstory via flashback that is used to break up the main plot. Each of these is a story in it’s own right, with it’s own message/social commentary. They all form part of the larger puzzle too, with it all coming together by the end. Three of the team however are there to be expendable. Perhaps that’s a negative, but the film is upfront with why they are there and what is likely to happen. Funnily enough, even they ended up being entertaining.
The Always Connected, Disconnected Society
This is a film with something to say. None of it is ground breaking, but it is natural, well expressed and entertaining. The movie looks at Phone obsession, the difficulties of teaching students while they are all distracted by tik tok and other nonsense (Especially the challenge of getting them to read a book). It also jokes of the goofiness of memes and AI prompting and the awkward intrusiveness of built in advertising. Entering darker territory, the movie examines the apathy towards school shootings and the concept of replacing the dead with AI copies. The movie examines our own loss of humanity while making all the above actually funny. The largest angle though is examining the growth of actual AI (Not just LRMs) and looking at the desire to give up on the real world and live in a virtual one.
Deep stuff, but the movie manages to say its bit, while making you laugh and keeping your focus. This isn’t really an action movie, but the action in it is solid and serves it’s purpose well. It doesn’t have Hollywood polish, but they managed a few things I’ve never seen before in regards to action. So I don’t see any negatives there. Due to the length of the flashbacks, the main plot is shorter than perhaps you’d expect. This another one of those parts where I don’t really see it as a negative, but it’s worth noting. The journey isn’t quite as epic as promised, but the story doesn’t suffer for it. There are gaps in the information we’re given, mostly involving everything between our heroes childhood and when he started time traveling. It is left a mystery, yet one that the film doesn’t really need answered.
Conclusion
This movie has quickly become a favorite for me. In recent years I’ve found movies to be lacking so many elements that are present in this movie. The originality, the fun factor, having something to say that doesn’t just leave me rolling my eyes and going “This… again?” It is all so refreshing. In previous decades this would be a definite cult classic. Something like Donnie Darko in the 2000’s or The Big Lebowski in the 90’s. These days though, the market for movies is more diluted and has so much competition from, funnily enough a lot of the things the movie is making it’s commentary on. I don’t know if the movie can make back it’s small budget or will get to become the legendary cult classic it deserve to be.
I’m going to do my bit for it though. I may be ending this blog this year so perhaps it’s not a bad time to break my highest rating yet. This is a high 8.5/10. Honestly, I may even rase this to a nine. Go see this movie.