Good Luck, Have Enjoyable, Don’t Die could be one the craziest films of 2026 and this decade. Impressed by the multiversal hijinks of Every little thing In every single place All at As soon as and online game mentality, director Gore Verbinski has delivered maybe a career-best movie. Whereas some complicated modifying and an nearly too blunt anti-AI message maintain it again, Good Luck, Have Enjoyable, Don’t Die nonetheless proves to be a wildly authentic and entertaining experience.
It’s humorous to think about it authentic given the way it begins in a well-recognized place. Sam Rockwell performs a crazed man arriving from the long run in a diner, pleading for companions to hitch him in a quest to avoid wasting humanity and describing that he’s on the 117th try. He’s satisfied that the appropriate mixture of individuals is inside the diner and demonstrates intimate familiarity with the assorted outcomes of previous mixtures. The Groundhog Day vibes are already there.
However this film wildly diverges from that story in the way it makes use of the loops, or lack thereof, and as a substitute focuses extra on cultural satire. A lot of the film just isn’t repeating loops or something of that nature. As a substitute, after gathering the crew, we get a sequence of flashbacks because the crew makes an attempt to journey from the diner to a home in a close-by neighborhood the place a toddler is about to create the primary fully-sentient AI that may take over the world. Once more, regardless of The Terminator-like enemy, this movie has different objects in thoughts.
The humor is the place this film is most profitable. It combines some shockingly darkish jokes with a mad-ball sense of sci-fi absurdism, and it pierces society on all the pieces from our attachment to telephones, the alleged apathy relating to college shootings, the prevalence of AI, and humanity’s want for connection and growing sense of isolation. Whereas the grimness of a few of the humor could not land for everybody, the whole dedication to its bits make it fairly humorous. One is caught between laughter and awe at simply how nihilistic a few of its.
It’s as if Verbinski has been ready his complete profession to be let off the leash. For a director finest identified for guiding the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, and remakes of The Lone Ranger and Ringu, seeing him get to do one thing rather more creative is a delight. He and Sam Rockwell give the film its power, and the chaotic enjoyable of the image is infectious. As soon as once more, Rockwell retains proving he’s an underrated expertise in Hollywood and may have way more star autos below his belt.
But for all the enjoyable this film has, the chaos does work it in opposition to it at instances. It struggles with the stunning audacity of the flashbacks feeling like a sequence of brief movies when juxtaposed with the first plot. As soon as the flashbacks conclude, the storytelling turns into a tad extra standard. That’s to not say there aren’t extra good bits of silliness left, however the modifying does give the ending a rushed feeling, and it’s a bit unclear what the ultimate takeaway is meant to be precisely. There’s a nihilistic take for positive, but it looks like optimism was the intent? There are additionally another working bits and themes that really feel deserted or not absolutely developed. This might have been cleaned as much as assist the movie attain the subsequent echelon of excellence.
As talked about, Good Luck, Have Enjoyable, Don’t Die bears its influences proudly. Combining absurdism, satire, and video-game mechanisms into a movie that’s deliciously and sadly, firmly a product of 2026, it affords a lot for these prepared to get onboard the loopy prepare. Regardless of the sloppiness, it looks like Verbinski has lastly made an amazing work, which is sweet for a filmmaker who’s nearing the tip of a profession. And this film feels wanted for a society that’s simply now starting to wrestle with the ramifications of the emergence of transformative AI know-how.
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