When it comes to having concerns about how much technology is impacting our daily lives, director Gore Verbinski knows how to bring on that concept with many punches to the gut.  Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is one-of-a-kind. It’s a story where the world is seeing its end, and it all falls back onto reliance on technology, a terror that is a fear in daily life. The level of distraction is one that I am even concerned about every day when I wake up in the morning, but Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die twists that and moves it forward with consequences that are well-written. With class and humor, the dangers of Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die do not go unpunished.

The film begins with a dinner interrupted with a man wrapped in all kinds of foil and trash. He is The Man from The Future, played by Sam Rockwell. He goes into a diner in LA and does what he can to recruit a team to fight against AI crashing down the planet Earth. The film begins with a lot of moments where it seems like a joke, but with the right continuity it all comes together to be highly calculated and witty form of genius. What fuels this is that many of the characters have a backstory before the man’s arrival upon the diner—a comedy where peril is questioned but also provides some shocking introductions.

The events have an order, and I will elaborate on a few. My mind was floating with many words of how to describe the how much of my attention was drawn on Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. I was thoroughly invigorated while also curious as to what was creating the phenomenon to come around. Verbinski’s directing has a chronological following with Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die.

The first scenario involves a man named Mark (Michael Pena) and Janet (Zazie Beetz). They are a couple working at the same school, and Mark finds himself trying to deal with students who are possessed by their phones. This leads them seeming as ifthey are becoming angry robots with resentment. Also, the main issue is that the school has many teachers on sabbaticals. Verbinski’s creation of strange dynamics has a narrative to form an uprising. After that there is a scenario where a woman named Susan (Juno Temple) loses her son and decides to go to a facility and have him cloned, however this leads her to realizing her cloned son is more like a robot. The third scenario is a woman named Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson) who finds herself allergic to phones and Wi-fi. Most of that is because a failed relationship of hers where her partner paid more attention to video games than to her.  AI getting the attention is at the core of the clever mystery in Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. Distraction among prioritizing technology creates the build-up surrounding The Man from The Future and the people in the diner creating a vivid portrait where survival and logistics is reaching its ending point. It also leads to the characters being scared to utilize technology for help, as people’s obsession is what had led them to the end of the world scenario in the first place.

A masterful and creative flow of distractions coming back with more to throw out each time. This film does so with hard hits that make it a comedy fueled by ambition. Verbinski brings out the flaws of how people’s behaviors have karma to them. Their lives were devoted to devices with no human connection, but in the end their technology destroys them in immersive light.  The truth of the amount of destruction is like an airplane ride that is a first-class ticket to a mind-blowing location of laughs, realizations, and theories. 

One quote that speaks the most with this unexpected masterpiece goes, “I feel emotionally targeted!” That quote has a meaning resembling many of the perils that thrive in thisadventure. While some characterizations are flawed and overrated, it works for the comedy aspect and the genius continuity. Reality and AI are the obstacles and are the moving parts for a surreal adventure unlike no other–one with comedy, suspense, laughing moments, and screen-time with vengeance. Four out of for stars for Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die.