Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die – REVIEW

by

We wish you Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die!

Our local café is regularly disrupted by a man nicknamed ‘Mental Mickey’ who dramatically enters, looking disheveled and holding a sausage roll as if it were a dangerous device, yelling ‘Watch out, it’s a bomb!!’ The film ‘Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die’ begins with a comparable scene: Sam Rockwell storms into an LA diner dressed in outlandish clothes, claiming to be a time traveler. He’s looking for recruits to help him save the world, and it’s not his first attempt. He’s been to this diner before, seeking volunteers, but he quickly dismisses some of them, revealing they died on previous missions he sent them on.

The Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die story!

To the people of Los Angeles, he’s just another momentary distraction before they go back to eating and checking their phones. But he’s faced this reaction 117 times before, so he knows how to work the crowd. He emphasizes his points with a button that will detonate a bomb strapped to his chest – a far cry from his earlier habit of simply eating any bombs he found. He assembles a diverse team of seven, including a single mother named Susan, a punk-dressed Ingrid, teachers Mark and Janet, Uber driver Scott, scout master Bob, and foodie Marie. As a man from the future warns them, some – or even all – of them might not survive their mission. And so, they set out to save humanity, facing bizarre challenges like pig-masked assassins and a giant, glitter-peeing, people-eating cat-horse hybrid.

The film lives up to its chaotic reputation, and truly shines during flashbacks that reveal how each customer ended up at the diner when Rockwell arrives. The script, by Matthew Robinson, cleverly critiques our society’s obsession with social media – a fitting target in the age of influencers. The film is full of clever details, such as a scene where John Cena’s character, as a teacher, accidentally triggers a chain reaction by touching a student’s phone.

The return of a blockbuster director

Gore Verbinski, a director known for both huge hits like Pirates of the Caribbean and major flops like The Lone Ranger (he even won an Oscar for the animated film Rango in 2012), returns to filmmaking after a decade. His new film, following 2016’s unsuccessful A Cure for Wellness, is an overly long and rambling satire. While visually creative at times, it ultimately feels unfocused and in need of tighter editing.

Have fun?

We definitely need a sharp, critical commentary on how obsessed we are with our phones, endlessly scrolling through pointless content and harming ourselves and those around us. Unfortunately, ‘Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die’ doesn’t deliver. Its complicated title is awkward and doesn’t quite work.

Here’s the trailer for ‘Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die’ ……

Read More

2026-02-17 03:23