After a decade since his final characteristic, Gore Verbinski has lastly returned to helm an image, this time with a wacky AI satire, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. Verbinski’s options have by no means strayed away from mixing the grim subject material with comedy (even inside movies for youthful audiences like Rango and Mouse Hunt). He’s at his loudest right here, basically holding up a center finger to the fact we constantly barrel in direction of every passing day, and the outcomes are considerably far and wide.
I’m all for anti-AI messaging, particularly when it’s applied in methods which might be each humorous and but insanely bleak. Unfortunately, the commentary does at occasions devolve right into a repetitive nature, to the purpose the place the extra attention-grabbing commentary is misplaced. Still, regardless of its messy screenplay and skinny construction, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is a wild journey that balances a techno-hellscape with humorous and insightful commentary, making it an gratifying sufficient time.
What is Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die About?
The movie begins with a killer setup introducing The Man From The Future (Sam Rockwell), who enters Norm’s diner in a haze carrying a coat with what seems like an hooked up bomb, warning its clients of an impending doom coming for all of them—the day when AI fully takes over.
He claims to have seen this state of affairs tons of of occasions, the place he recruits a bunch of random patrons within the diner to put in a security program into the world’s most superior AI system that’s at the moment being created. But with every try, they fail, and he should reset and take a look at once more.
Naturally, most individuals within the diner suppose he’s a loopy particular person, however some suppose his fears may need a touch of actuality to them or simply don’t have anything else to lose. Now, the kooky future man’s hopes are driving on the brand new crew he’s assembled of Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson), Mark (Michael Peña), Janet (Zazie Beetz), Susan (Juno Temple), and Scott (Asim Chaudhry). It’s as much as the six of them to avoid wasting the Earth from an unbeknownst peril that has affected every of their lives in varied methods.
Strengths and weaknesses of the movie’s satire
The madcap tempo at which Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die races by means of its story causes some characters to appear much less developed than others inside its giant runtime. But the movie’s commentary is best inside the sections the place we give attention to every member of this band of misfits.
The movie isn’t delicate in regards to the bleak realities we discover ourselves in as know-how progresses to extra absurd levels. The film works greatest when it’s at its most inventive inside these boundaries.
We flashback with characters like Mark and Janet as academics below fixed stress about their duties. Amidst their college students being glued to their telephone screens, Susan’s grieving over shedding her son in a college capturing results in her buying an AI clone of him.
We even be taught that Ingrid is the world’s solely particular person to be allergic to know-how in a world whose rising obsession is barely with silly developments in know-how. The mixing of the grim trendy updates of this close to future, not removed from our personal, combined with pitch-black jokes surrounding the doom we discover ourselves in and surrounding AI slop inside these storylines, is the movie at its most attention-grabbing.
However, points begin to come up inside Matthew Robinson’s screenplay whenever you notice that the movie’s commentary doesn’t actually evolve over boomer “phones bad” speak at a sure level within the runtime. There’s nothing missing subtlety if that’s the tone your movie needs to work in, however what’s supplied right here merely isn’t sufficient to have interaction for a effectively over two-hour runtime. Add that, mixed with the film changing into fully perplexing with sure reveals in its climax, means Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die doesn’t really feel fairly as full because it ought to for Verbinski’s return to movies.
Luckily, the movie is saved afloat by sure scenes the place Verbinski’s aptitude actually shines and an extremely dedicated Sam Rockwell, who rolls with the chaotic absurdity in each scene. Verbinski isn’t any stranger to helming sequences of nice spectacle, together with his work in Pirates of the Caribbean because the strongest indicator. But it’s spectacular how a lot mileage is gotten out of extra action-heavy scenes within the climax, even within the face of some tough CGI.
Final ideas on Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die
The movie struggles so as to add a lot nuance to its messaging, and its chaotic nature will get a bit tiring because it loses itself by means of the runtime; however Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die gives sufficient absurd laughs and witty satire that you just admire its messy madness greater than you don’t by the point the credit roll. A far cry from the highlights of Verbinski’s filmography, however a pleasing return nonetheless.
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