OK, I had an unexpected hiccup when I went to the movies Saturday, intending to see Crime 101 and instead seeing Wuthering Heights because I really should wear my reading glasses when ordering tickets on an app. Sure, I ended up enjoying Wuthering Heights way more than I thought I would, but the point stands. Seeing as there were four movies I was interested in checking out over my three-day weekend, I figured I need to see the ones less likely to be big crowd-pleasers that might stay in theaters for very long. That led me to the second movie for the weekend, the sci-fi comedy Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, a movie that, if nothing else, is probably going to be one of the more unique movies to come out this weekend.
And yes, I checked to make sure I was in the right theater at the right time before I left the house.
Sam Rockwell, a guy who has made a career playing odd characters, stars as the Man from the Future (as he is listed in the closing credits). The Man, wearing an outlandish outfit that looks like was cobbled together with stuff lying around a mechanic’s basement, tells a diner full of people that he is from the future, and he is there to save the world from an AI that is set to be born that very night. He says this is not his first time, that something that seems likely given he knows quite a bit about everyone in the diner, and he needs a seven-person team to help him do what he needs to do. He doesn’t care which seven people volunteer. He just needs seven in a different configuration than he has used in the past. He does end up getting seven volunteers, even if he ends up picking a few of them himself.
First, though, he needs to get out of the diner because someone called the cops as the Man claims he has a bomb. But he has his seven: high school teachers and a couple, Mark (Michael Peña) and Janet (Zazie Beetz); grieving mother Susan (Juno Temple); scout leader Bob (Daniel Barnett); pie enthusiast Marie (Georgia Goodman); skeptic and Uber driver Scott (Asim Chaudhry); and birthday party princess Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson). Flashbacks give some backstory for some of these characters and the strange, exaggerated world they all live in. The Man knows he can’t stop AI, not entirely. He just needs to do something to make life better. But in a world where far too many people seem addicted to their phones, can the Man save the day? And how many of his seven helpers will make it out alive?
Alright, let’s start with the obvious: this is a very odd movie. It’s a satirical comedy where the tech is a bit more advanced from where we are now. Mark, in a new job as a substitute English teacher, isn’t sure if there are any rules about smartphone usage and makes what might be a fatal mistake. Susan has the worst day of her life get even worse when she does something that is pretty much out of at least one Black Mirror episode. Ingrid, meanwhile, has an allergy to Wi-Fi in all its forms. It makes for a story that hits some interesting beats, but for all that the movie is trying to tell a unique story, it is really hard to miss the influences of other movies like The Terminator, Night of the Living Dead, and, oddly enough at one point, Toy Story. It helps that Rockwell is a pro at oddball characters, and having likable actors like Peña, Temple, and Richardson in particular in key roles.
But is the movies satisfying? One of the (quite appropriate) complaints about AI-generated content is that it is, at best, empty calories. A lot of people are enamored with the tech, to be sure, but there’re also a lot of people who see it as a problem. Director Gore Verbinski’s movie is working off the idea that AI, and social media in general, is just a massive distraction whose best trait is entertaining the masses. Is a mass-market movie the best way to spread that message? Artificial intelligence is certainly here to stay, but at the same time, does it really do much of anything? Is it really that popular? I may be the wrong person to ask here as I am a tech skeptical by nature, and while I won’t say I never use AI, I will say I don’t use it for professional reasons except on those extremely rare instances where I am asked to. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die has an earnest message at its core, but also not one that hasn’t been said before more eloquently. The movie is fine, but I don’t think, in the end, it was all that deep.
Grade: B-
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