Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die review | Ambitious, uneven, and entertaining

Directed by Gore Verbinski | 2026 | Rated R

Gore Verbinski returns to theaters after nearly a decade away with this sci-fi action comedy about artificial intelligence, time travel, and the ways technology has quietly worked its way into every corner of modern life. The result is a movie that has real ideas rattling around inside it, and a cast that commits fully to the material. Whether it all comes together is a more complicated question.

Sam Rockwell plays a nameless traveler who shows up at a Los Angeles diner late at night with a very specific goal: find the right group of people to help him prevent a catastrophic AI event. This is, by his own count, his 117th try. Rockwell handles the role with his usual charm, cycling between frantic urgency and weary resignation in a way that keeps the character watchable even when the plot around him gets messy. He is, without question, the best thing in the film.

The supporting cast rounds out well. Michael Pena and Zazie Beetz play teachers pushed to their limit by students glued to their phones. Juno Temple brings some genuine pathos to a grieving mother who stumbles into something deeply unsettling when she tries to reconnect with her late son through technology. Haley Lu Richardson, fresh off her work in The White Lotus, plays a woman with an actual physical allergy to electronic devices, a detail that doubles as both a plot convenience and a commentary on modern disconnection. Each of these characters gets a dedicated flashback segment to flesh out their backstories, which is where the film starts to work against itself.

The structure here is the film’s biggest obstacle. Verbinski and screenwriter Matthew Robinson break up what could have been a propulsive thriller with repeated detours into anthology-style vignettes. The idea is to show why each person is uniquely suited to face down a world overrun by AI, and thematically, these segments do their job. But from a pacing standpoint, the film keeps stopping itself right when it builds momentum. By the third or fourth time the story rewinds to fill in someone’s backstory, a certain patience is required from the audience.

What holds the movie together through its structural hiccups is Verbinski’s direction. He has a knack for sustained energy and visual invention, and even when the script fumbles, the camera rarely loses interest. There are sequences here that feel genuinely alive, particularly in the film’s second half when the different storylines finally begin converging. The action is chaotic in a way that feels intentional rather than lazy, and Verbinski’s comic sensibility gives the material a lightness it might not have survived without.

The film’s anxieties about AI are loud and clear. It touches on questions about education, grief, intimacy, and what gets lost when people prioritize virtual connection over physical presence. These are worthwhile things to be anxious about. Where the movie falls short is in how deeply it explores any of them. The themes are present, but they are often delivered in shorthand. Characters exist primarily to represent a concern rather than to embody one. The film gestures at its subject matter more than it wrestles with it.

Robinson originally conceived this story as a television pilot, and in some ways it still feels like one. The ensemble setup, the interlocking backstories, the sense of a world that could sustain more episodes: all of it points toward something with more real estate to work with than a single feature. As a film, it sometimes feels like it is trying to do too much in too little time while simultaneously slowing itself down to fit it all in.

There is fun to be had here. Rockwell anchors the movie with ease, the supporting players are all doing good work, and Verbinski keeps things visually interesting throughout. The finale brings a decent amount of energy and lands on a genuinely clever note. For a mid-budget action comedy with something on its mind, this is a reasonably enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.

It just could have been a bit sharper. The raw materials are here for something with a little more bite, and it is mildly frustrating to watch them settle for a film that is broadly entertaining but not quite as smart as it wants to be. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is worth seeing, but you will probably find yourself wishing it had trusted its own instincts a little more.

Currently available for digital rental/purchase. Physical media release on April 21.