Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die Review: Ctrl+Alt+Delight

Back in the day, when multiplexes were clogged with sequels and safe bets, audiences celebrated the movies that zigged when everything else zagged. Films like Brazil, Repo Man, and Being John Malkovich didn’t ask permission. They just showed up weird and dared you to keep up. Gore Verbinski‘s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is that kind of movie, a breathless, brilliantly unhinged ride that dives headfirst into the strange and never once looks back.

The setup sounds simple enough: A man bursts into a Los Angeles diner wearing what looks like a suicide vest cobbled together from Soviet-era tubes, tangled wires, and a CPAP machine. He claims to be from the future and needs to recruit the exact right combination of late-night patrons to stop a rogue AI from destroying humanity. He’s tried 117 times already. This attempt feels different. The Man From the Future (Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) is either a prophet wrapped in garbage bags or the most convincing vagrant this side of Skid Row. That tension fuels everything that follows.

Matthew Robinson‘s screenplay doesn’t play fair, and I mean that as the highest compliment. Just when you think you’ve figured out where it’s heading, it stops, takes a few steps back, does a cartwheel to the left, and runs diagonally in the opposite direction. The film introduces its ragtag team through vignettes that reveal their backstories: Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson, Montana Story), a nihilistic princess-for-hire in smeared makeup and a tattered blue dress; Susan (Juno Temple, Killer Joe), a grieving mother led to the diner by forces she doesn’t understand; Mark and Janet (Michael Peña, End of Watch, and Zazie Beetz, Joker), schoolteachers hunted by their own students for daring to interrupt screen time; and Scott (Asim Chaudhry, What’s Love Got to Do with It?), a fast-talking whiner who gets volun-told into saving the world.

What could have been a scattered mess stays perfectly aligned with its mission. Verbinski, returning after eight years away since A Cure for Wellness, brings his signature eye for detail and keeps the action fluid without ever letting viewers get ahead of the story. The Black Mirror influences are clear, from ads hardwired into clones to people zombified by technology, but this is very much its own animal. Craig Wood‘s editing ensures the forward momentum never stalls, and certain scenes are cut in ways that reward repeat viewing. I watched it twice in a single day and caught clues I’d completely missed the first time. That’s intelligent filmmaking.

Rockwell is phenomenal here. There’s a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy quality to his exhausted, perturbed team leader stuck in his own Groundhog Day nightmare. He’s effortlessly charming while recounting the gruesome deaths of previous recruits, calling one man “as useless as an albatross.” Richardson continues proving she’s one of the most interesting actors working today, and Temple finds something genuinely moving beneath her character’s tragic circumstances. The ensemble clicks in ways that feel almost miraculous.

Director of photography James Whitaker keeps every frame alive, and Geoff Zanelli‘s score, inspired by Captain Beefheart and Mike Watt, shifts from analog warmth to digital unease as the world fractures. Neil McClean‘s costume work deserves special mention. Rockwell’s pieced-together ensemble tells you everything about his character before he says a word, and each team member’s look instantly signals their archetype without feeling like a shortcut.

The satire cuts deep. This isn’t Terminator-style Skynet stuff. It’s something more insidious: a world where AI hasn’t started a cyberwar but has simply turned us into content-munching zombies while billionaires profit from the wreckage. The film is wickedly funny about it too, never losing its sense of humor even as it shows you something genuinely chilling about where we’re headed. The climax delivers a visual showstopper that’s as satisfying as any Marvel film and maybe even more heroic because no superpowers were required. I won’t spoil, but the effects combined with humor is worth the wait.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is wild, wacky, and weird, but also warm, winning, and wonderful. It’s the kind of original filmmaking that used to pack theaters when audiences trusted that taking a chance might pay off. This one pays off big. It’s going on my best-of-the-year list without question (I know we’re in January, but I said the same thing last year about Suze and I didn’t waver), and I suspect it’ll find the passionate cult following it deserves. Here’s hoping there are still enough people out there who remember what it felt like to be genuinely surprised at the movies.