This review stems from a screening at the 2025 Fantastic Fest Film Festival. “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” is scheduled for a theatrical release in the United States on January 30, 2026.
For years, films like Terminator painted the AI apocalypse as an epic cyberwar, but the reality is far more insidious: it’s the erosion of our minds by algorithms and social media. Director Gore Verbinski’s new film, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, offers a refreshingly grounded yet utterly wild take on AI’s terrifying potential. Matthew Robinson’s screenplay is a delightful whirlwind of time travelers and mythical beings, and despite its playful tone, its commentary on our society’s unhealthy obsession with technology is profoundly unsettling and chillingly accurate.
Sam Rockwell shines in his role as the film’s eccentric protagonist, a character who is either a brilliant hero from the future or a charmingly unhinged conspiracy theorist. His urgent mission: to embed crucial safety protocols into an advanced AI model being developed by a child prodigy. To achieve this, he must assemble a ragtag team from the unsuspecting patrons of a Los Angeles diner, but with 117 failed attempts behind him, he’s never quite sure who the right recruits are. This time, his motley crew includes a tech-averse princess (Haley Lu Richardson), a grieving mother (Juno Temple) whose son was a victim of gun violence, and two teachers (Michael Peña and Zazie Beetz) literally on the run from their students. Can this unlikely ensemble finally save Earth’s future?
Rockwell’s portrayal has a distinct Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy vibe, as he expertly embodies an exasperated yet oddly charismatic leader trapped in a bizarre time loop. He’s instantly captivating, commanding attention the moment he bursts into the diner. His blunt, often hilarious attempts to recruit everyone from Boy Scout leaders to frat boys, along with his deadpan recounts of past failures where potential team members met untimely ends (one dismissed as “useless as an albatross”), are pure comedic gold. This role is a perfect fit for Rockwell, allowing him to deliver a performance that’s confident, sarcastic, and wonderfully unhinged. The perpetual question of whether he’s humanity’s last hope or simply a very convincing, disheveled wanderer keeps the audience hooked.
The narrative of Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die isn’t a straightforward journey. It frequently shifts to compelling vignettes exploring the backstories of Rockwell’s fellow travelers, which, while occasionally slowing the pace, ultimately serve as the film’s most potent weapon. These interwoven pre- and post-diner timelines can be daunting to follow, but they’re where Matthew Robinson’s script truly delivers its most scathing societal critiques. Verbinski cunningly positions Rockwell’s time-hopping weirdo as an eccentric figure in an America already transformed into a sprawling, Wi-Fi-powered prison. Here, humanity is reduced to content-devouring zombies, glued to smartphones and VR headsets, while school shootings have become horrifyingly commonplace. Both the government and tech moguls shamelessly profit from this digital daze. It’s a grim vision, yet it stands as one of the most disturbingly plausible depictions of an AI apocalypse ever put to screen.
It’s empathetic enough to urge a better tomorrow, with ample servings of devastation and paranoia about the world today.
Both Verbinski’s direction and Robinson’s script deliver a blunt, impactful message, approaching the AI discussion from a vital perspective: AI isn’t a looming threat; it’s already here. Rockwell’s character isn’t attempting to destroy a child or their supercomputer, but rather to establish essential safeguards. While Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die often ventures into the bizarre and grandiose, its core message about responsible AI implementation is delivered with both urgency and remarkable nuance. Despite Rockwell’s “end-is-nigh” demeanor, Verbinski’s film is far from a madman’s rant. It powerfully advocates for a better future, all while unflinchingly exposing the devastation and paranoia of our present world.
Beyond its profound themes, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is simply a blast, thanks to its clever AI satires. Peña and Beetz, for instance, resort to improvised “Mars Attacks!”-style gadgets to “brick” their students’ devices after daring to interrupt their screen time. Juno Temple’s character descends into a vortex of grief, ending up in a chillingly plausible, Apple Store-esque facility that purports to “help” parents of school shooting victims – a truly agonizing and effective satirical moment. And then there’s Richardson, the children’s party entertainer who develops nosebleeds whenever she’s near technology. The film weaves these delightfully strange scenarios into sharp, easily digestible points, all dissecting the illusory perfection promised by AI-driven systems. Ultimately, these “perfect” worlds are revealed as flawed constructs based on “shitty prompts,” as the team discovers when battling hordes of visually spectacular AI-generated foes.
Verdict
At its core, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is a riotously funny yet deeply somber and impactful film – a fever dream that passionately advocates for a more responsible AI future. Verbinski masterfully orchestrates pure chaos, and even if the narrative’s momentum occasionally dips when switching between converging storylines, the film’s overall flow is remarkable. It’s infused with a sense of hope, pushing back against the fatalistic idea that we’re powerless against AI’s potential dangers. Moreover, it’s genuinely entertaining, with Rockwell brilliantly leading his diverse team through increasingly absurd and challenging scenarios, all of which he has ironically experienced countless times before. As wild and dreamlike as Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die becomes, expanding in scope as time runs out, its urgent relevance and insightful foresight remain its most striking qualities. It’s truly astonishing how a movie this quirky can be so direct and profound, leaving you to ponder its message long after the credits roll and you’re metaphorically “cleaning the glitter off your bodies.”