A man from the future (Sam Rockwell) arrives in a diner in Los Angeles with an important message. The future he comes from has been devastated by an artificial intelligence that took over all of humanity. Within this diner there is a specific combination of people that will allow him to save the world and he needs volunteers. This is his 117th attempt at saving the world, will he be successful this time?

Once the man has his selection of volunteers we head out on a madcap adventure that is interspersed with flashbacks that flesh out some of our volunteers lives and experiences of technology. 

Mark (Michael Peña) and Janet (Zazie Beetz) are teachers whose colleagues appear to slowly be going missing and whose students seem to be obsessed with their phones. In fact, when Mark touches one of those phones the teenagers seem to turn into a murderous and scary collective. 

Susan (Juno Temple) loses her child in a school shooting only to be soothed by a set of mothers asking if it is her first time? They give her a card that takes her to a location where she can have her son cloned and returned to her. Initially delighted she finds the end product to be creepily not quite her son. 

Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson) appears to have an allergy to technology. Whenever she is near a phone or Wi-Fi signal she gets a nose bleed. Attempting to live an entirely analogue life is incredibly challenging especially when your loved ones find themselves seduced by the technology you need to avoid. 

Meanwhile our heroes seem to be encountering all sorts of crazy hinderances in their attempts to make it to their end goal. 

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is a film that I initially had lots of fun with before I found it to slowly peter out into some rather obviously rote blockbuster shenanigans. The fact that this is actually the point given its huge criticisms of AI only make it a little more frustrating that it does not quite work. 

My major criticisms initially would be that the entire film again feels like a mash up of other inspirations. The man returning from the future, his costume and his internal plight feels entirely lifted from Twelve Monkeys, the difference is of course in Sam Rockwell’s entirely different anarchic delivery. Whilst the flashbacks and specific issues with technology feels like a series of Black Mirror episodes. One particular facet of Susan’s story is actually a plot point of the Black Mirror episode “Common People”. This should not in itself be an inherently large issue were it to deliver a mix of these ingredients in a way that created something unique. But I am unconvinced that without Sam Rockwell’s presence that this would manage to lift itself above rote. 

There are some interesting and relatable threads in here around doom scrolling and addiction to technology. I think anyone would be hard pressed to not relate to one of the issues raised. Whilst the impending rise of AI and how it will impact us all is of course a very interesting and worthwhile debate. We can only hope it does not lead us here. 

All in all though I found this film to outstay its welcome as it delivered an ending that seemed entirely obvious.