In “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End,” Jack Sparrow is banished to Davy Jones's chest, where he has to endure his personal hell: an endless white salt desert in which he is literally left high and dry with his Black Pearl and slowly falls into madness. But wait a minute: Isn't this actually part of a blockbuster series worth hundreds of millions of dollars, which is also based on the ride of the same name from the Disney theme parks? Where does such an experimental, existential detour into hardcore surrealism suddenly come from? The most likely answer is: Gore Verbinski!
Yes, the former commercial filmmaker directed the first three “Pirates of the Caribbean” films – and then catapulted himself into the Hollywood sidelines with the big-budget flop “Lone Ranger”. But in the rest of his filmography there are mainly works that are out of the ordinary in the best sense of the word: from the darkly humorous cult classic “Mouse Hunt” to the Oscar-winning chameleon western “Rango” to the gothic horror mindfuck “A Cure For Wellness”. But what would happen if Verbinski were finally let off the leash? If you want to know that, you definitely shouldn't miss the crazy sci-fi action satire “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die”.
It's hard to believe, but even with this outfit, the nameless protagonist (Sam Rockwell) is hardly noticeable when he visits the diner.
The guests at the LA diner initially think he's a homeless weirdo. With his unkempt beard and dirty rain cape, the mysterious man (Sam Rockwell) doesn't exactly look like he's spent the last few nights in a comfortable bed. But the nameless man doesn't come from the street, but from the future – and he doesn't have much time left to put together a suitable team to avert the impending danger to humanity at the last second. However, given the huge combination possibilities, it is anything but easy to choose exactly the right guests.
That evening, the time traveler, who always keeps his thumb on the detonator of his bomb belt, is making his 117th attempt – just like Bill Murray did in Groundhog Day. But this time it feels different somehow: Has he finally hit the jackpot with the teacher couple with relationship problems (Michael Peña, Zazie Beetz), the single mother with a button in her ear (Juno Temple) and the child's birthday princess with a nosebleed (Haley Lu Richardson)?
Black mirrors everywhere
Similar to Zach Cregger's recent horror masterpiece “Weapons – The Hour of Disappearance”, “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die” is also told in chapters that are named after the characters at the center. In this way, we gradually learn why the selected guests might actually be suitable for warding off an impending AI apocalypse. The various flashbacks seem like exaggerated episodes of the Netflix series “Black Mirror”, in which the potential depths of technical innovations are also revealed in a grotesquely exaggerated way: in “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die” the teaching staff literally has to deal with mobile app zombies – and school shootings lose their horror when you can simply have your own child cloned again, even after the fourth deadly rampage.
It is certainly no coincidence that when the camera moves past the diner tables in the very first scene of the film, it focuses not on the food ordered, but on the omnipresent doomscrolling displays. Yes, “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die” is (still) a statement about people just staring at screens, of which there have been quite a few recently – but Gore Verbinski still goes one step further and, in collaboration with his screenwriter Matthew Robinson (“Love And Monsters”), has apparently never brushed off an idea as too crazy from the outset. In any case, there's no other way to explain why such a bizarre purr-fect boss is waiting for the diner team at the end – by then, “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die” almost seems like a live-action version of the brilliant cartoon series “Rick & Morty”.
There is a very specific combination of diner guests who can avert the end of humanity. Is the 117th combination the right one this time?
The episodic structure, together with the running length of an impressive 134 minutes, ensures that the nocturnal adventure journey through the backyards of Los Angeles, which are full of surprising obstacles, sometimes drags on. But that's why there's Oscar winner Sam Rockwell (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”), who – once again – delivers a brilliant performance in “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die” and thus grounds even the most bizarre twists:
We never see his first 116 attempts, but only based on his resigned, laconic and at the same time arrogant and calm demeanor, we can immediately imagine how they must have gone – and we certainly wouldn't mind if we were served a few more of them in one of the two (!) possible sequels that the director has already teased in interviews.
Conclusion: Gore Verbinski is always good for a cult film anyway, but in “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die,” which is packed to the brim with crazy ideas, he really goes wild. A caustic, satirical science fiction fireworks display, as crazy as the nameless protagonist's awesome raincoat outfit promises!