Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die

Say what you will about Gore Verbinski’s big-budget work with Johnny Depp, but when the filmmaker has original material at his disposal, inspired things happen.

Such was the case with The Weather Man and A Cure for Wellness (which arrived a long 10 years ago), and it's true for his latest feature, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, as well.

Working from a zippy script by Matthew Robinson (The Invention of Lying), Verbinski expertly combines the explosiveness of Pulp Fiction’s climactic diner scene with the “Come with me if you want to live” urgency of The Terminator and Looper’s premise of going back in time to stop a young person from committing a great evil.

Driving this scenario with gonzo comedic energy is Sam Rockwell as a purported visitor from the future who's recruited various permutations of the diner’s clientele to aid his mission, albeit without success — yet.

Back for another go with a new assortment of help, this Future Man remains a tantalizing enigma who knows everyone by name and hilariously blasts their secrets to “prove” his legitimacy, despite otherwise presenting as a crazy homeless man.

But his accomplices — played by Juno Temple, Zazie Beetz, Michael Peña, Haley Lu Richardson, Asim Chaudhry, and others — are introduced through sharply written flashbacks that reveal their respective paths to the diner that fateful night. More importantly, these vignettes also shade in troubling details of a world in the throes of AI, whose allure this rag-tag group has nobly managed to avoid, despite experiencing great personal strife as a result.

These commentary-rich scenes collectively offer a wise and timely treatise on the dangers of modern technology and the need to resist while we still can. Such advice is sure to be dismissed by viewers too addicted to AI to care, and occasionally gets a bit ridiculous even for those committed to the resistance, particularly in a CGI-heavy climax that nearly falls apart.

But even in its creaky moments, the film’s strong technical elements keep it afloat. As with all Verbinski films — even his Pirates of the Caribbean sequels — Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die looks terrific, and this time does so courtesy of an unexpected cinematographer: Jim Whitaker, who's mostly retreated into TV work after such early career standouts as The Cooler and Thank You for Smoking two-plus decades ago.

That such high-quality original material arrives in February — traditionally a rocky month for new releases, this year included — and on the heels of Sam Raimi’s Send Help (another non-IP feature from a long-dormant director) feels too good to be true. In turn, it’s a great time to be an adventurous moviegoer, though it’s a shame that tickets to less thoughtfully crafted films don’t come with Rockwell’s “abort” button that lets viewers start over and pick a different option.

Grade: B-plus. Rated R. Now playing at AMC River Hills 10, Carolina Cinemark, and Regal Biltmore Grande.

(Photo: Briarcliff Entertainment)