Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die Review: A Truly Silly Movie That Also Legitimately Terrifies Me

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When I heard the title Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die for the first time, I assumed the movie would be a blast and a half, and I figured it’d be pretty silly, too. That is all true. However, this film also terrifies me to no end, and that was a surprise. Now, I’ve had time to think about all of this, and overall, I’m thrilled that this outlandish sci-fi adventure that scares me got made.

In Gore Verbinski’s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, a man from the future (Sam Rockwell) comes to a time that’s slightly more advanced than the present we live in to assemble a team of people to save the world from artificial intelligence. However, that team has to be made up of the seemingly random set of folks who are eating at a diner the future man enters. So, with his rag-tag group made up of a couple of teachers (Michael Peña and Zazie Beetz), a woman dressed as a princess (Haley Lu Richardson), a mom (Juno Temple), and a few other diner patrons, he sets out to save the world.

That concept alone proves just how silly this movie is, and the humor laced into it hammers the point home. However, along with this being a goofy story, it also has points to make about our society that genuinely freak me out.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is a big silly swing of a movie.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die starts with Sam Rockwell’s character doing a big monologue about the future and his mission to a diner of confused people while wearing a bizarre plastic outfit that makes him look both more technologically advanced than us and homeless. And from his first second on screen, I knew I was in for a good time. Truly, from start to finish, his grisly and slightly unhinged future man is a hoot, and it feels like the Oscar-winner had a wonderful time playing him.

The fun he seems to be having is infectious, and when that mixes with the outlandish plot involving AI that is trying to take over the world, you get a very odd, big swing of a story.

It works for the most part, too, and it is a ride. However, this concept also sets that stage for some serious (and scary) discussions about the world we’re living in.

I’ve always been a bit squeamish when it comes to movies about the end times; they spook me. However, they really scare me when the cause of said end times is something we’re currently dealing with in the present. It’s the sprinkle of social commentary that always leaves me in a spiral, and that’s why Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die horrifies me.

In the case of this movie, that evil is AI. I’m not gonna lie: AI scares the living daylights out of me. So, the fact that artificial intelligence was the problem here immediately made me tense.

But that’s not what really gets me. What truly gets under my skin are two of the issues the various diner patrons deal with. The teachers have to handle students who are so brainwashed by their phones that they cannot function. Meanwhile, after a school shooting, a mom has to grapple with the death of her son and the technology available to help her get him back (in a way). In both cases, most of the people involved are hypnotized by technology and desensitized to the trauma around them.

I worry about how technology is hindering us as a society, and I have concerns about how desensitized we can become to truly awful things. So, to see both fears viscerally portrayed in this movie sent me spiraling a bit, even with the comedic sensibilities paired with them.

However, I think that’s a good thing. I love that Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is a silly sci-fi quest that also has some dark social commentary in its DNA. It makes for a movie that you’ll have a good time watching, but will also think about afterward. I know it has certainly stuck with me, and that’s 100% because I did have fun, but also left terrified.