Sam Rockwell stars as The Man From the Future, a bizarrely dressed homeless person who enters a diner one night, ranting about needing soldiers for a future battle and waits for recruits to step forward.
When Rockwell’s character knows the names of every diner customer, it dawns on everyone that he may not be insane.
Gore Verbinski’s “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” is a comeback for the multifaceted filmmaker, who early works include one of the best live-action Disney comedies (“Mouse Hunt” from 1997), the best American remake of an Asian horror classic (“The Ring” from 2002) and the blockbuster “Pirates of the Caribbean” trilogy.
Most filmmakers whose formerly red-hot career was frosted by a couple of flops would pick a sure thing for a comeback vehicle. Verbinski went in the opposite direction – his latest is as amusing but hard to peg down as the title and, like his best films, likely for a cult following and not mainstream acceptance.
As inventive as this always is, not everything in the story connects. The first act, after the bravura opening in the restaurant, stops and starts and isn’t always engaging.
A subplot emerges involving the collective response to school shootings, a decidedly dark topic to emerge as fodder for satire. School shootings are referenced here as a springboard for the topic of cloning, but the bad taste remains.
“Heathers” (1989) earned the right to satirize the unthinkable occurring in high school but not this movie. Instead of coming across as bold and edgy, as intended, this portion of the movie is a what-were-they-thinking near dealbreaker for me.
The third act, full of arresting visuals and truly grand twists, finally won me over. The film, at 136 minutes and at the mercy of an anything-goes screenplay by Matthew Robinson, is always bold and totally undisciplined.
There was a simpler and far less heavy-handed way to tell this story, but Verbinksi indulges in every one of Robinson’s outsized gestures.
Verbinski’s prior film, “A Cure For Wellness” (2016), was an expensive flop that, like this one, combined genres and overextended its welcome with a running time nearing three hours. I love that film.
With “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die,” Verbinski demonstrates that his status as a visionary filmmaker who takes on difficult projects is still surmountable, but his latest works great in parts but never as a whole.
Unlike the films of Terry Gilliam, Verbinksi piles on the overkill but can’t fully engage with our emotions. Everyone onscreen is a caricature or target for broad satire – it’s like a film-length version of a fake “Saturday Night Live” commercial.
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Rockwell’s central character is a lot like Perry, the homeless man suffering terrifying hallucinations in Gilliam’s “The Fisher King” (1991), but that film succeeded not only as a fantasy but as a love story, buddy comedy and contemporary retelling of Arthurian legend.
This movie seems, above everything else, determined to find a niche in the midnight movie circuit, playing in a double feature with either “Everything Everywhere All At Once” (2022) or “John Dies At The End” (2012), both of which are similarly ambitious, overloaded with crazy subplots and totally superior to this.
Whereas Gilliam’s films exude the impish glee of a youthful prankster (as much as a master of anything-goes cinema), “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” mostly comes across like an angry rant. I share the screenwriter’s uneasy feelings regarding artificial intelligence but painting all teenagers as literal cell phone-brandishing zombie jerks is fine for a political cartoon, but, as portrayed at feature length, feels downright hostile.
In addition to AI and the contemporary public high school system, this also exudes a contempt for Gen-Y teens overall. If anyone accuses this of being an old man’s movie that expresses distrust for the generation in front of it, they’d be right.
Rockwell still possesses an ability with one-liners that makes him a highlight of any film he’s in. Verbinski and Rockwell work hard to keep us entertained, but the best scenes are surrounded by too much of everything.
Two Stars (out of four)
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