Gore Verbinski’s Gleeful But Vapid Diatribe Towards Social Media and AI Is Too Desirous to Succeed

Gore Verbinski has some phrases for the youthful era, and he is not going to be transient about it. Behind a bloated script from Matthew Robinson (Love and Monsters, Dora and the Misplaced Metropolis of Gold), the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy director rails towards the contagious use of AI, the degradation of the planet by the hands of social media and the scourge of gun violence in our faculties. In fact, all these items are interrelated, however in Good Luck, Have Enjoyable, Do not Die, they’re solely explored in silo, and with obnoxious, Boomer, railing-against-the-sky humor, making all the enterprise really feel interminable.

To make certain, the movie has loads of cheeky attraction to it, however most of what’s good is drowned out by wild stabs at unclear targets and a script that bobs and weaves when it is perhaps higher served by staying the course. Sam Rockwell reliably excels as a probably insane man from the longer term, and Haley Lu Richardson is there for a strong help, however a lot of Good Luck, Have Enjoyable, Do not Die is preening and self-congratulatory each in its trite humor and at what it purports to be criticizing.

Good Luck, Have Enjoyable, Do not Die Is Too Meandering and Unfocused

What is enjoyable in regards to the movie is its labyrinthine fashion of world-building. What begins off as a easy premise — a crazed man crashes Norm’s Diner in LA late at night time with a speech in regards to the apocalypse — turns into a wacky, at occasions propulsive chase towards time to cease the world’s demise. The issue is that the A-plot is persistently interrupted by backstories, all of which might be fodder for their very own motion pictures, all of which really feel like low-cost knock-offs of Black Mirror.

When the person from the longer term arrives (Rockwell), clad in a dirtied, see-through plastic poncho which has been lined with a spider’s internet of wires and a mysterious ticking clock on his wrist, he instantly begins railing towards the issues of the world. And Verbinski verifies this by scanning over a packed Norm’s wherein practically everyone seems to be mindlessly, endlessly scrolling on TikTok or Instagram.

The person’s message is obvious: sooner or later, humankind has turn into so lobotomized by know-how that half of the inhabitants has died from quite a lot of dominoes. The surroundings has been depleted, and people which might be left are too distracted by their telephones to even understand simply how unhealthy issues have gotten. Humorous although Rockwell is within the movie’s opening gambit, consuming random bits of meals and throwing cell telephones into water pitchers, what he is saying is so laced with the cynicism of the older era that it may be onerous to take it severely in any respect.

Regardless, his message is (ultimately) communicated effectively sufficient. That is his 117th time touring again to present day Los Angeles, and he’s satisfied that some mixture of patrons would be the proper mixture to successfully cease a nine-year-old boy from creating the singularity by means of an manmade intelligence system promised to wipe out civilization as we all know it.

By some reasonably humorous hijinks, the person recruits, amongst others, Ingrid (Richardson), a morbid youngsters’s occasion entertainer with make-up streaming down her face; Mark and Janet (Michael Peña and Zazie Beetz, respectively), two highschool lecturers who’re on the outs with one another; Susan (Juno Temple), a grief-stricken single mom, and Scott (Asim Chaudhry), an offended Uber driver.

All of them have very particular motivation to take a leap of religion in becoming a member of the person on his doomed quest, and all of them have numerous ranges of intrigue, however the Magnolia-like construction would not assist the movie transfer ahead with ample vitality. The movie is overlong by a large margin, none extra so evident than within the last, disastrous act, which destroys any goodwill that had been constructed up.

Susan’s backstory specifically is extraordinarily misguided. Having simply misplaced her son to a faculty taking pictures, Susan finds herself at a extremely secretive experimental laboratory that resurrects the useless by means of a cloning process. There’s loads of critique right here of the gun business and of coverage that perpetuates gun use whereas ignorning weak youngsters, all of which is justified and righteous. However, typically Verbinski and Robinson are aiming their ire at victims relatively than the techniques that are in place that guarantee individuals like Susan will proceed to undergo.

It is all a bit too diffuse and irritating. The identical is true of its common angle in the direction of social media. Sure, we’re overly depending on these toys, however assuming its an issue of “youngsters nowadays” relatively than a really purposeful, capitalistic push to maintain us glued to them misses the forest by means of the timber. Even nonetheless, the movie would not study why youngsters are so adamant to keep away from actuality. Might or not it’s due to any fill-in-the-blank issues?

The movie has a enjoyable time satirizing a world that’s so damaged and appears to be dashing headlong into techno-authoritarianism, however its not exact sufficient to hit its goal successfully. And, as an alternative is an limitless slog of cutesy, saccharine humor. There are about seven completely different intriguing movies buried in right here, however none of them are given the total consideration they deserve, although in case you’re on the lookout for wholesome doses of delirium and cynicism, Verbinski actually has you coated. Good luck on the market.

Good Luck, Have Enjoyable, Do not Die releases theatrically on February thirteenth, 2026.