The Reel Review
A time traveler from a post-apocalyptic future enters a diner in present day Los Angeles, where he assembles a ragtag group of customers to help him stop rogue Artificial Intelligence from destroying a future Earth. Sam Rockwell, Haley Lu Richardson and Juno Temple (Ted Lasso) star in this satirical sci-fi action/adventure.
This film from director Gore Verbinski (the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, The Ring) is a wildly creative and gleefully nutty and clever mashup of Back to the Future, The Terminator, and Everything Everywhere All at Once. The subversive comedy skewers how Americans have become smartphone and social media addicted zombies whose technology-induced brain rot has numbed them from traumas like school shootings. We soon learn that Rockwell’s man from the future has replayed this diner scenario hundreds of times, each time seeking a new combination of ordinary diners who possess the extraordinary skills needed for success. That opening scene is a riot.
Flashbacks featuring Michael Peña (Ant-Man and the Wasp, American Hustle), Zazie Beets (Deadpool 2), Temple and Richardson (The White Lotus, Five Feet Apart) reveal the skills that will help their characters on this wild and wacky journey. Without being overly preachy, the playful film is a pointed criticism of an overreliance on modern technology. And while not for everyone – it truly is pretty bonkers – the only real criticism is that it overstays its welcome by about 20 minutes and not everything it throws at the wall sticks. Rockwell, however, is clearly in his element.
REEL FACTS
• Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die director Gore Verbinski won an Oscar and a BAFTA for his 2011 animated Western comedy Rango.
• Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die screenwriter Matthew Robinson wrote the screenplay for 2020’s Love and Monsters and 2019’s Dora and the Lost City of Gold, and is currently working on the sequel to the 2014 Tom Cruise/Emily Blunt sci-fi adventure Edge of Tomorrow.
• Sam Rockwell won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for 2017’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
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