Sam Rockwell goes to warfare in opposition to AI in ‘Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die’

As evidenced by a strong sampling of movies over the previous few months, the bulging battleship that’s Hollywood has lastly caught up with headlines about synthetic intelligence.

Tom Cruise stopped an AI program referred to as the Entity from initiating nuclear armageddon in “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” Chris Pratt needed to show his innocence to Rebecca Ferguson’s AI Judge Maddox in “Mercy,” and Jason Statham was framed and hunted down by his personal authorities after an AI surveillance program went rogue in “Shelter.” Even at this yr’s Sundance Film Festival, Oscar-winning documentarian Daniel Roher tackles each side of the coin within the aptly titled “The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist.”

Between these grand theatrics and extra matter-of-fact tales, the limitless potential of synthetic intelligence has turn into inescapable, its demeanor seemingly a mirrored image of its creator. “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die,” the primary movie from director Gore Verbinski in a decade, falls squarely in keeping with these beforehand talked about blockbusters. But simply as its title suggests, its warnings concerning the grave risks of this superior superweapon are served with a wink and a smile. Just keep in mind to not die!

For The Man From the Future (Sam Rockwell), that final little bit of instruction hasn’t come simply, having almost met his maker on a number of hundred events. His inconceivable luck comes from a time-loop gadget strapped to his physique, which inconveniently makes him seem like a suicide bomber. His scraggly beard, haggard rain go well with, and wily demeanor additionally don’t assist his marketability when he enters a present-day Los Angeles diner trying to recruit folks for his world-saving mission.

Inside that diner are folks taking a look at their telephones, oblivious to the truth that the world is teetering on the sting of the apocalypse. The Man’s future has been overthrown by synthetic intelligence because of humanity’s incapability to train warning on the slippery slope of technological progress. Just down the highway from the diner, a pc prodigy is creating that AI program, and The Man has been sending himself again in time to cease that from occurring, hoping to recruit the proper mixture of strangers to assist him.

Matthew Robinson’s script is totally in service of Rockwell’s excessive charisma on this opening set piece. Pages upon pages of exposition are dumped on the diner’s patrons and the viewers, all of it serving as a grave warning for each the fictional and real-world. This is the 117th time The Man has carried out this tune and dance, the fixed failure carrying him all the way down to the purpose the place he’s simply going by way of the motions.

Rockwell roughly choreographs his actions like a dance, balleting throughout tables, twirling by way of the barstools, and exactly hitting the cues he’s memorized from repetition. It’s a little bit of old-school Hollywood showmanship, Rockwell’s infectious spirit being simply convincing sufficient for some folks to purchase into his ludicrous mission.

A battle kinds right here, which continues all through the movie, between the performances of the extremely certified solid and the phrases they’ve been paid to recite. The Man’s criticisms and prophecies about fashionable society are all legitimate, however that doesn’t robotically make them compelling to listen to. It appears to stem from the attitude of an older determine who has slowly turn into out of contact, all the time having one thing to say about “kids these days” and insisting we return to the best way issues have been.

Zazie Beetz and Michael Peña play a few academics recruited by The Man. In an prolonged flashback explaining how they acquired to be on the diner at that actual second, they train at a highschool the place college students are described as “barely people.” Phone dependancy and narcissism run rampant within the classroom, resulting in instructor shortages and weekly faculty shootings. The moms of the slain children deal with it as a minor inconvenience, with one treating her fourth lifeless baby as if it have been the fourth time her goldfish died.

Flashbacks are additionally given to Juno Temple because the seemingly solely rational dad or mum of a lifeless baby, and Haley Lu Richardson as a younger girl who was actually born with an allergy to cellphone and web indicators. She falls for a person who willingly rejects know-how, their love portrayed as purer.

Running an nearly unforgivable 134 minutes, almost half of the movie is spent on the previous actions of supporting characters, bloated filler taking away from the far superior zaniness Rockwell provides in the principle storyline.

That size isn’t a shock for Verbinski, the filmmaker who pleasantly pushed the primary three “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies towards the three-hour mark, after which unpleasantly stretched “The Lone Ranger” and “A Cure for Wellness” to 2 and a half hours. But what Verbinski lacks in brevity, he usually makes up for with ingenuity. The lack of monetary assets doesn’t hinder his capacity to create moments of visible splendor; generally a well-timed digital camera transfer or edit is all that’s wanted to boost the stakes.

Its scattershot power feels reminiscent of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” although the items of the puzzle don’t come collectively as neatly as they need to.

This very a lot feels prefer it has all the weather of a cult film, with devoted followers seeing themselves within the random strangers who be a part of the struggle alongside The Man, and the remainder of us resembling the ambivalent diner patrons who simply wish to tune out all that’s unhealthy on this planet. Unfortunately, judging by the movie’s timeline, we is probably not round for the mandatory variety of years it takes for cult standing to kind.

In the meantime: good luck, have enjoyable, and don’t die.

Briarcliff Entertainment will launch “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” in theaters nationwide on Feb. 13. Early entry PLF screenings will happen on Feb. 10.

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Eden Prairie resident Hunter Friesen is a movie critic who owns and operates The Cinema Dispatch, a web site the place he writes evaluations, essays, and every little thing in between. He’s additionally the movie critic for the Woodbury News Net. He presently serves because the president of the Minnesota Film Critics Association and travels the globe protecting movie festivals each massive and small. To view his total physique of labor, you possibly can go to his web site and Instagram.