In a cinema schedule stuffed full of sequels and reboots with studios reluctant to take a chance on some original IP, it’s always refreshing when a proper risk is taken.
None more so than in Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die from Pirates of the Caribbean original trilogy director Gore Verbinski, his first film for a decade.
The wild and ambitious new time travel comedy follows Sam Rockwell’s “man from the future” arriving back in time at a present-day LA diner.
Looking like a homeless man in worn 80s futuristic dress, he announces that he needs volunteers to help him save the world from a terrible AI-driven future.
What follows is a tongue-in-cheek Terminator meets Black Mirror as he recruits a reluctant team who aren’t sure if he’s telling the truth.
During their eccentric mission, an anthology of three short films gives flashbacks to some of his recruits, including a Florence Pugh lookalike and story MVP, Haley Lu Richardson. Each short is very much like a mini Black Mirror episode. One lampoons the zombification of Gen Z with smartphones in schools, another considers the ethical problems of cloning dead relatives, while a third examines the desire to live permanently in a virtual world. What’s particularly chilling about each sci-fi short is that variants of all three already exist in the real world, where AI continues to advance with ever-increasing speed and no end in sight.
This wonderfully original and quirky film is unashamedly and uncompromisingly anti-AI, managing to both entertain (Rockwell is fantastic as always) and challenge across this busy caper. At 134 minutes it does risk dragging, but after that twist ending there’s plenty of room for a couple of sequels, which Verbinski has already admitted he’s keen for.
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die hits UK cinemas this Friday.
