Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die
The zombie apocalypse is given a timely spin in Gore Verbinski’s satirical masterpiece.
Groundhog doomsday.
Image courtesy of Entertainment Film Distributors.
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
You have to laugh. Teenagers have become so addicted to their cell phones that they have become completely disconnected from reality. School shootings have become so commonplace that those unaffected are in the minority, social outcasts even. There’s also that nuclear winter to look forward to, a complete breakdown between the younger generation and their elders (like, the really old: those past thirty), and don’t get the film’s director Gore Verbinski started on AI… To its credit, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is impossible to describe in a nutshell, but one might say that it’s a chillingly satirical dystopian Groundhog Day in the manner of Terry Gilliam. Gore Verbinski, perhaps best known for directing three of the Pirates of the Caribbean films and the Lone Ranger fiasco, has, after a ten-year hiatus, created something truly original, a whacky time-travelling epic that addresses critically important issues in a wildly entertaining way.
The film starts promisingly, where, in a Los Angeles diner, the 47 customers are quietly enjoying their food and absorbing the content on their phones. Then a shaggy, dirt-encrusted stranger in a plastic raincoat appears out of nowhere claiming that he is there to save them from the future. He (Sam Rockwell) maintains that he has entered the same diner at the same time 117 times before, but has been unable to succeed in his aims with the lacklustre aid of those he has requested to help him. Not surprisingly, the customers believe him to be mad, but are somewhat taken aback by how much he knows about them. This time, he needs seven volunteers, hopefully the right ones to help him to succeed in his mission. He wasn’t sure about Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson), in her shabby Disney princess costume, but when a spinning Cholula bottle rests at her feet and points at her, he adds her to his posse…
Like all off-the-wall masterpieces, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is too weird and wonderful to appeal to all tastes, but if one is willing to go with it, it yields many pleasures, guffaws and priceless moments to tap into your worst nightmares. When an alarm bell rings out through the corridors of Glenhurst High, a nonchalant staff member explains that it’s not a fire drill, just another school shooting. When poor Susan (a mousy, heart-wrenching Juno Temple) attends a gathering for the bereaved, she is asked, “is this your first?” When she’s provided with an exact clone of her murdered son, she’s offered a cheaper model because he comes with ads. And so it goes…
If the film is upsetting, it is intentional. This is satire with teeth. With constant warning signs scattered all around us, society ploughs on regardless, heads bowed in denial, as we head towards our cataclysmic finale. Still, if we’re going to stumble off the precipice, we might as well die laughing.
Cast: Sam Rockwell, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Peña, Zazie Beetz, Asim Chaudhry, Tom Taylor, Juno Temple, Georgia Goodman, Riccardo Drayton, Dino Fetscher, Anna Acton, Daniel Barnett, Dominique Maher, Artie Wilkinson-Hunt, Adam Burton, Elly Condron, Meghan Oberholzer, Berenice Barbier, Tanya van Graan, and the voice of Gore Verbinski.
Dir Gore Verbinski, Pro Gore Verbinski, Robert Kulzer, Erwin Stoff, Oly Obst and Denise Chamian, Screenplay Matthew Robinson, Ph James Whitaker, Pro Des David Brisbin, Ed Craig Wood, Music Geoff Zanelli, Costumes Neil McClean, Sound Erik Aadahl and Malte Bieler.
Constantin Film/Blind Wink Productions/3 Arts Entertainment-Entertainment Film Distributors.
134 mins. USA/Germany. 2025. US Rel: 13 February 2026. UK Rel: 20 February 2026. Cert. 15.
