Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die Review: Sam Rockwell Powers A Chaotic Anti-AI Ride

In a funny coincidence, the start of 2026 sees two different directors — responsible for popular blockbuster trilogies of the 2000s who disappeared for almost a decade — returning to the big screen with wacky mid-budget genre films. The first of these, Sam Raimi's revenge fantasy "Send Help," had Disney resources behind it, a "one for me" favor to the "Spider-Man" director after fulfilling "one for them" duties on "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" (his comeback from after 9 years away from directing). Gore Verbinski's "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die," on the other hand, is a fully independent production — the "Pirates of the Caribbean" helmer had to work his own way out of director jail following the back-to-back flops of "The Lone Ranger" and "A Cure For Wellness."

It's for the better that "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die" exists without studio interference. While still having a bit of blockbuster DNA in its tropes and reference points, this sci-fi action-comedy-thriller showcases Verbinski in full weirdo mode, concerned with mind-screws instead of marketability. You have to respect the sheer vision of this film, even if that vision doesn't always cohere. And that's before we even get into the thing that makes it so relevant — and what might have been the biggest turn-off for studios either owned by or trying to make deals with Big Tech. While Amazon/MGM is selling confused pro-AI messages in "Mercy" a few screens over in the multiplex, "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die" is both a battle cry and a bleak joke about how unregulated technological progress could destroy civilization and break our souls ... if it hasn't already.

"Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die" opens in a diner, where an unnamed man (played by Sam Rockwell) wearing a plastic-wrapped explosive vest rants about cell phone addiction and announces himself as a time traveler from a post-apocalyptic future. He's seeking volunteers to join him on a mission to stop an advanced artificial intelligence from ending the world this very night. This isn't his first time doing this, so he proves he's a time traveler by sharing his knowledge of everyone in the diner — some "Groundhog Day" mixed in with "The Terminator." To succeed in his mission after many failed attempts, he needs a new combination of team members. The team's wild card this time around is Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson), a lonely woman in a princess dress who, unlike everyone else in this diner, does not have a phone.

The main story following this team's adventure is interspersed with chapters giving backstory on the individual teammates. Where the main story stays exciting and enjoyable throughout, these flashbacks are more inconsistent — and the first one got me worried I was in for a bad time. Focused on Janet (Zazie Beetz) and Mark (Michael Peña), a teacher and a substitute respectively, this sequence is a lazy and mean-spirited caricature of teenagers as TikTok-addicted zombies. I'm sure I've read the same worried op-eds as Gore Verbinski and screenwriter Matthew Robinson, and yes, they also get me worried about how younger generations are handling this crazy world, but these are issues we need to approach with empathy rather than condescension.

Thankfully, there's more empathy to be found in the second flashback sequence about Susan (Juno Temple), a mother grieving her son killed in the first flashback's school shooting. Where the first flashback could have been a rant about "kids these days," the second puts into focus that the film's "present" isn't exactly "these days" but some time in our future, with big high-tech twists that play like a combination of multiple "Black Mirror" episodes. The satire here is more pointed and darkly hilarious. The third flashback, explaining Ingrid's whole deal, falls somewhere in-between the annoying first and brilliant second — it's ridiculous and not particularly clever or well-developed, but by then, the story has already reached such a pitch of absurdity that you can roll with it.

While "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die" oscillates between highs and lows, the comedic energy and madcap conviction of Sam Rockwell's performance never wavers. It's the actor's best work since "Moon," and a standout within an overall impressive ensemble. The adventure story keeps you on your toes; even in moments where I guessed a twist ahead of time, the film would take enough other wild turns in the meantime that when my predictions finally came true, it felt mind-blowing again.

In its anti-AI messaging, "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die" falls somewhere between a classic robot apocalypse story and a commentary on what's actually being developed today. The latter results in the film's funniest action sequence, wherein the enemy misunderstands a "prompt" and our heroes find themselves fighting a spectacular brainrot slop monster (animated, it must be made clear, by actual human VFX artists). Some AI critics might criticize the film's set-up of singularity super-intelligence as an "inevitability," arguing that the real problem with AI isn't that it's going to become smart, but that despite all the hype, it's going to remain dangerously stupid. But that reality doesn't exactly lend itself to a high-stakes action thriller. The film's ending addresses this and most other logical critiques one can make of its story with a clever self-aware twist that works equally well as a brutal self-contained punchline and an opening for potential sequels.

The movie I find myself thinking about the most in comparison with "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die" is "Idiocracy." Both are very funny sci-fi comedies making earnest satirical points that get close enough to the truth of major social issues to earn cult favorite status — while also being off the mark enough in other ways that some people will find them annoying. To be clear, the whiny Boomer-y bits of "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die" aren't quite as problematic as the accidentally-endorsing-eugenics backstory of "Idiocracy," and Gore Verbinski's filmmaking is more visually exciting than Mike Judge's, but the mix of mostly righteous but sometimes off vibes is similar between the two. "Idiocracy" got its more humane counterpart in the form of "WALL-E;" for a similarly superior animated counterpart to "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die," look at "The Mitchells vs. The Machines."

"Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die" opens in theaters on February 13.