★★★½ (3½ out of 4)
Not since the Third Reich has a screen villain been more hissable than artificial intelligence. And “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die,” now in theaters, has a good laugh at its expense. And also a deep, dark, devastating cry. Sam Rockwell, the merriest of pranksters, stars in this potent provocation disguised as a screwball sci-fi romp. He’s an unnamed time-traveler from the future out to warn us about A.I. As if we need the tip. AI is a monster we can’t destroy, but we can resist. Whether it takes the form of a ball of kittens or a bald boy child, it’s not real, it’s an algorithm that offers false comfort in simulation.
Director Gore Verbinski hasn’t made a movie in nine years. If you had megaflops like “The Lone Ranger” and “A Cure for Wellness” on your discredit sheet, you probably wouldn’t be fielding too many offers either, despite such hits as “Mouse Hunt,” “The Ring,” “Rango” and three “Pirates of the Caribbean” cash cows on your calling card.
Long story short: Verbinski’s inventive work on this one counts as a striking return to form. Working from script by Matthew Robinson that dips from inspired to insipid and back again, Verbinski still has the skills to keep “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” hurtling to a conclusion you won’t see coming. He also knows how to throw visual and verbal curveballs just when they’re needed.
Not since the Third Reich has a screen villain been more hissable than artificial intelligence.
So back to the bearded man from the future in his leaky, threadbare space suit. He’s in Los Angeles—of course he is—at Norm’s diner on La Cienega Boulevard with a message for assembled customers and staff: “This is not a robbery. I’m from the future and all of this is going to go horribly wrong.”
The dead-eyed diners, hooked on their devices, aren’t much bothered. This is La La Land, after all. “You look homeless, bro,” says one. What gets their attention is the finger this bizarro stranger has on a detonator attached to a perceived bomb on his chest. What does he want from these broken people? To find the right candidates to join his mission is save the world from an AI uprising that won’t settle for less than total domination.
Future man looks resigned to something less than success. He’s already made appearances 117 times before at this same place, and that switch isn’t a detonator but a “Groundhog Day” reset button so he can find exactly the right team to join him on his mission impossible.
Queue the backstories: Here’s Susan (Juno Temple), a woman he’s never chosen before, volunteering to join Team Apocalypse for reasons soon to be made clear. And what about Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson), a millennial in a blue princess dress, claiming an allergy to AI and making her immune to generative hallucinations that give AI its power. Her nosebleeds are a symbol of her struggle. Those who see her as a case of arrested development would be wrong.
Also on the plate for Future Man are schoolteachers Mark and Janet (Michael Peña and Zazie Beetz), a doughy Boy Scout leader (Daniel Barnett) and two picks from out of nowhere (Asim Chaudhry and Dominique Maher) who are setting off something in this leader.
If you’re getting the feeling this is all a cosmic game, a simulation only won when the player gets the right combination on his chessboard, you’re getting warmer. Things go from funny to fiercely disturbing when victims of school shootings are cloned and asked to join the party, including teens who salute anyone in uniform by saying, “Thank you for your service.”
With Rockwell as the ringmaster, Verbinski has assembled a paradise for gamers that plunges into an abyss no one would call a game. That ballsy move is reflective of the big swing that is “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die—words that become a chant for joining the enemy. The film ends with a challenge: accept the comforting illusion AI is selling to control you or suffer the pain of a reality that comes with a harsh but possibly healing truth. Bad luck, No Fun and Certain Death? Maybe. But this movie thinks the risk is worth it. How about you?