Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die rails in opposition to AI in fashion

You’ve seen this film earlier than: A matted man (Sam Rockwell) busts right into a restaurant, threatening to explode the joint until a crew of individuals joins him. Like Groundhog Day, he is been by means of this numerous occasions earlier than, and he instantly begins recounting in any other case unknowable particulars to persuade the diner patrons. Like 12 Monkeys, he is from the longer term — the well timed twist in Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is that, quite than a world-ending virus, he wants assist stopping a humanity-ending AI from being born.

Good Luck is extra of a primal scream than a considerate articulation about the place every little thing went fallacious. There’s a little bit of “old man yells at cloud” power right here (director Gore Verbinski is 61, and screenwriter Matthew Robinson is 47), but it surely suits the movie’s satirical tone. Looking round on the world as we speak, who does not want they may warn their previous selves in regards to the tech business and the brand new ruling class it helped breed.

Rockwell’s character ultimately wrangles a ragtag crew of future saviors: Mark and Janet (Michael Pena and Zazie Beetz), a married couple of highschool academics; Susan (Juno Temple), a distraught mom; and Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson), a tragic girl sporting a princess gown. There’s additionally Asim Chaudhry’s Scott, who principally serves as comedian reduction, however does not get any actual backstory just like the others.

Good Luck wastes no time fleshing out its current near-dystopia in episodic chapters. It seems Mark and Janet are additionally on the run from smartphone-obsessed excessive schoolers, who spend their days scrolling by means of countless TikTok-like feeds. Susan is compelled to confront a horrific state of affairs round her son (I will not get into specifics right here, but it surely’s a distinctly American phenomenon). And Ingrid is actually allergic to Wi-Fi and sensible gadgets, which makes it laborious to suit into the fashionable world.

Each of those situations play out like mini Black Mirror episodes. Everything is heightened to the absurd, and all the issues could be traced again to unchecked technological encroachment and capitalism. Nothing delicate there. The glimpses of an apocalyptic future are even much less so — all we see are destroyed cities, folks trapped in VR headsets (which place them in an AI-generated actuality) and robots looking down anti-AI people.

Good Luck is at its greatest when it is merely having enjoyable. As Rockwell and crew make their approach to their closing vacation spot — a baby who’s about to invent true AI — they encounter pig-faced assassins, Stepford-esque dad and mom and an adorably horrific kaiju. Even when confronted with half-baked scripts, Verbinski at all times manages to impress visually (assume again to the creepiness of The Ring, or the wildly entertaining set items in Pirates of the Caribbean). That’s as true as ever right here, the place the ultimate scene evokes the hyper-tech chaos of Akira.

As a lot as Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, evokes basic sci-fi, it nonetheless can’t maintain a candle to the sheer terror of seeing AI unleash a nuclear bomb in Terminator 2. And regardless of its zanines, it doesn’t attain the madcap heights of Gilliam’s Brazil or 12 Monkeys. But if you happen to’re sick of getting AI merchandise shoved down your throat, and also you assume the notion of “true AI” is a farce, it’s a enjoyable approach to channel your rage.