There was a time within the not-too-distant previous when a film as intensely anti-phone as “Good Luck, Have Enjoyable, Don’t Die” would in all probability have been seen as insufferably preachy, or, on the very least, deeply embarrassing. Consider the interval within the mid-2010s when folks had typically optimistic opinions about Elon Musk, when Jason Reitman’s web morality play “Males, Ladies, and Kids” was obtained with scorn upon launch, when “Black Mirror” was standard but in addition invited many derisive jokes about its “what if telephone however an excessive amount of” technique of storytelling.
After all, rather a lot has modified previously decade, to the purpose that being a proud Luddite has turn out to be extra en vogue than the tech-optimism that marked early social media’s previous. In an age the place most apps downloaded in your telephone are cesspools of misinformation and bigotry, and seemingly half of the Tremendous Bowl commercials this yr had been promoting AI platforms, it’s straightforward to really feel just like the robotic apocalypse promised upon humanity by “The Matrix” and “The Terminator” is days away from our doorstep.
On this local weather, a principally goofy film like “Good Luck, Have Enjoyable, Don’t Die” takes on a notice of relevance, possibly even a sense of urgency. That’s positively asking an excessive amount of of the moviewith a hit-or-miss script from “The Invention of Mendacity” author Matthew Robinson that appears to be aiming for an “All the things In all places All at As soon as”-style mixture of memey humor and pathos that gels solely sporadically. Take the movie as a substitute as what it’s: an fulfilling, likable, and well-crafted lark that provides some cathartic preaching to the choir for everybody sick of ChatGPT, in addition to a welcome ticket out of director’s jail for filmmaker Verbinski Mountainswho makes his return to the multiplex after 9 years.
Possessing a kind of gonzo, barely off-kilter sensibility that has made his greatest movies just like the “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “Mouse Hunt” endure regardless of their limitations, Verbinski enlivens “Good Luck, Have Enjoyable, Don’t Die” on each stage, supplying the overstuffed 2-hour sci-fi journey with loads of hyperactive, kinetic sequences that makes the movie a zippy deal with. Take the opening, during which an unnamed man (a bearded Sam Rockwellrocking a loopy DIY apocalypse go well with) holds up a NORMS diner in Los Angeles, claiming to be from the longer term and calling on the patrons — most of whom go proper again to their telephones — to hitch him in a quest to avoid wasting the world from the upcoming apocalypse. The lengthy, drawn-out scene — with jokes that solely often land — may threat being tedious, however Rockwell’s efficiency and Verbinski’s route, which flits across the diner like a fly on pace, make it instantly participating.
Previous the opening sequence, “Good Luck, Have Enjoyable, Don’t Die” doesn’t actually attempt to create any stress over whether or not or not Rockwell’s character is de facto from the longer term, though that query turns into a minor supply of battle among the many six individuals who do agree to hitch this nebulously offered mission. Stated mission is deliberately a bit shaggy and underwhelming — their grand journey quantities to creating it to a home 5 blocks away — however the overly lengthy operating time ensures it runs out of steam earlier than they attain their vacation spot.
Robinson’s script piles on loads of problems and obstacles for the ragtag group of misfits to cope with — a pair of thugs, a crazed homeless man, a sort-of proto-zombie horde — that principally come throughout because the plot gadgets they’re. The dialogue often pulls out a zinger however typically lands on the apparent, and the relationships that type between this motley group by no means actually cohere into one thing
That mentioned, Verbinski makes lots of what occurs enjoyable, regardless of itself. The motion is crisp and straightforward to comply with; a automotive chase scene is thrilling completely due to what he does behind the digicam. James Whitaker’s cinematography leans right into a blue-hued, grubby aesthetic that provides the movie a gritty appeal, whereas touches like the mantra that goes together with the movie’s title card completely add to its aesthetic charms. The visible results are significantly impressed, getting a ton of mileage out of riffing on the queasy, vaguely gross sheen of AI-created monstrosities, from fake-looking backdrops to a really horrifying enemy that serves as one of many group’s ultimate roadblocks.
Along with the primary story, “Good Luck” is crammed with lengthy flashback sequences peppered all through of the mission goers’ days main as much as the diner hold-up. That makes “Good Luck, Have Enjoyable, Don’t Die” at occasions resemble one thing akin to an anthology movie. None of those segments affords significantly novel approaches to their subject material, though the general effectiveness of the three varies wildly.
The dullest focuses on Michael Peña and Zazie Beetz, who puncture the film with some sharp line reads however are largely wasted in thankless roles as Mark and Janet, two academics in a strained romantic relationship. Their section begins at one true however fundamental thought — youngsters at present are too reliant on cell telephones — and by no means goes previous it. The subsequent, specializing in Juno Temple’s Susan, invitations lots of pure comparisons to “Black Mirror” (particularly, the acclaimed “Be Proper Again” episode) though it finds a comparatively totally different angle and lots of morbid humor in centering its heady sci-fi idea round college shootings and Temple lands on a potent humor and unhappiness as an anguished, overwhelmed grieving mother.
An important section belongs to the movie’s stealth true protagonist, Haley Lu Richardson’s morbid Ingrid, a lady in a ruined princess costume who is sort of rejected from the mission and fairly clearly has some greater connection to every little thing occurring. Her backstory — following her remoted life as somebody allergic to Wi-Fi and the lack of her boyfriend (Tom Taylor) to a digital world — isn’t significantly revelatory, however there’s pathos and emotion to it that makes it devastating. And in a strong forged, it’s Richardson, who has at all times shone at taking part in characters fed up and a bit of misplaced, who most efficiently locates the palpable need for a world of actual human connection away from the display that needs to be the story’s middle.
It’s not likely a shock then when “Good Luck, Have Enjoyable, Don’t Die” chooses to readjust to deal with Ingrid in its climax, which can also be when the movie lastly reaches its full, absurd potential: the spectacular particular results attain that extreme “All the things In all places” high quality the movie is clearly impressed by, whereas the conclusion has a concurrently merciless however finally optimistic open-endendness that recollects a “Tales of the Crypt” episode. “Good Luck, Have Enjoyable, Don’t Die” isn’t an ideal film, however it’s a movie that, in all its extra and flaws, feels human-made. And if that appears like a low type of reward, effectively, simply check out the AI hell we dwell in to be confirmed in any other case.
Grade: B-
Briarcliff Leisure will launch “Good Luck, Have Enjoyable, Don’t Die” in theaters on Friday, February 13.
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