I missed Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die in theaters earlier this year so I was looking forward to catching up with it at home. Unfortunately, it really did not work for me. That happens sometimes.
This time travel action-comedy really is not satire so much as over two hours of memes. A man from the future (Sam Rockwell) visits a modern day diner in his latest attempt to assemble a team to stop the AI takeover from the future.
The film has points I agree with, like we’re all on our phones too much and missing out on social interaction. Flashbacks to individual characters’ backstories go too far and make the film a grueling 134 minutes.
Most glaring is Susan (Juno Temple)’s flashback. A mother grieving her son who was the victim of a school shooting, Susan visits a cloning center where an insincere salesman gives her the pitch. He ends up selling her a less expensive ad-supported clone, and the other parents with clones are completely blase about it.
The country’s blase attitude about rampant school shootings is a worthwhile satirical target, worthy of Jonathan Swift frankly. The film plays this Twilight Zone esque premise too wacky to believe the soulless capitalism of it. The wink ruins both the joke and the point.
Teachers Janet (Zazie Beetz) and Mark (Michael Pena) witness phones literally turn their students into zombies. Get it? And Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson)’s previously anti-technology boyfriend goes all on a virtual reality system. So yes, technology hypnotized him.
This sort of thing makes the epic run time insufferable. In between technology commentary is just generic violence whittling down the group, or absurd visual effects. This is less a comedic 12 Monkeys and more a Bill and Ted without the heart, but thinks it’s The Matrix.
I did get to watch the 4K UHD which is sharp, but hardly takes advantage of the format. The whole film takes place at night but never delivers pure shadow in its scenes.
The surround sound is active with action sounds and explosions. The cat monster’s hooves clomp in the rears. The AI lair is fully 360 degrees.
The only bonus feature is a five-minute “making of” that mostly explains the plot and characters. You do get to see the AI mound is just a green tarp on the set. It also wasn’t the real Norm’s but a very accurate set build.
I hope Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die works better for others. I agree with its sentiments but the execution lost me.