Gore Verbinski makes his long awaited return with a film that is just as zany, erratic and hilarious as the trailers suggested.
- Director – Gore Verbinski
- Runtime – 134 minutes
- Certificate – 15
- Country – United States
The film starts off so incredibly well and maintains that for at least 3/4 where the ending unfortunately fell really flat for me. But through its technical prowess and extremely witty script this may just be one of the most fun cinema experiences this year.
Seriously I cannot get over how funny it was – I must have been laughing at every other line. The dynamic as well between Mark (Michael Peña) and Sam Rockwell’s character was so good and Rockwell’s sarcastic remarks to him. Besides their dynamic, the other relationships were actually written fairly well. Janet (Zazie Beetz) and Mark mainly for me – I really liked their relationship and was so glad to see how they ended up.
However, while the script is endlessly witty, it is also incredibly on the nose and in your face. Absolutely no subtlety whatsoever. The premise is good and especially needed in the sense that AI is unfortunately inevitable it’s just that people need to reject it. However, even by Verbinkis’s standards it gets increasingly outlandish at the end – a bit too much for me. So much that it has lowered my rating for it, not by a lot but if it stuck the landing I would’ve rated it higher.
Saying this, I do appreciate how they tackle certain topics such as kids always on their phones and school shootings in America. The entire sequence of Susan ( Juno Temple) at the cloning place and the party had me dying of laughter due to how awkward and outrageous it was but also deeply disturbed due to how outrageous it was. I thought that some of the topics they handled were quite exaggerated, such as Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson) and her storyline.
Speaking of those storylines, I adore how chapter like they were – breaking up the main plot while also providing more wider context. It also allowed for more individual performances to shine through as when it was the main plot, Sam Rockwell stole every single scene he was in. Even though those individuals get to shine, it was more Hayley Lu Richardson and Juno Temple that truly shined.
Temple really sold the emotions of a grieving parent and Richardson with realising the absurdity in AI and technology.
I want to go back to the last quarter of the film because that’s where it really fell apart. As mentioned, subtly is not the film’s strong suit and that is okay because it works with this kind of talking point. However, when that child started his monologue it became even more so obvious and honestly really complex for no reason. Not complex as in hard to understand but they started using big words for the sake of big words. Ultimately it came off as a cringy anime villain monologue. Plus I’m sorry but Artie Wilkinson-Hunt could not act. I know he is a child but his line deliveries were so flat.
The film has a couple of plot twist too and I would say that they were good but unfortunately I saw them coming from a mile away. Once again, the film is so unsubtle that I couldn’t tell if were you meant to guess what the twists were.
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is an absolutely crazy experience that acts as a cautionary tale to the danger of AI through its witty albeit unsubtle script and energetic performances, even if the ending doesn’t exactly land the way it wants to.
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is now playing at the Lockworks.