Sam Rockwell can do almost anything on screen, even make us believe he’s a man from the future wearing a gaudy Halloween costume.
“Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” puts the Oscar-winner’s skills to the test in a story teeming with the absurd. It’s a bleak sci-fi comedy with several axes to grind, but the biggest one should be aimed at gonzo auteur Gore Verbinski.
Why did the director make a frothy social satire so darn long? Whatever fun we wring from this grab bag of sly gags, social commentary and culture war broadsides is muted when the saga barrels past the two-hour mark.
It might still be going on, for all we know.
An L.A. diner gets an unwelcome patron, a fellow dressed like a “Star Trek” castoff circa 1967. This Man from the Future (Rockwell) commandeers the diner with a not-so-disguised threat.
He needs volunteers to fight against a deadly foe or society is doomed. His garb hardly bespeaks the future. He looks like a homeless man who attempted an unwise TikTok challenge.
No one believes him at first. Would you?
But he has a series of bombs strapped to his chest and he won’t take “no” for an answer. So a few diner denizens join him in a quest that looks doomed from the start.
From there, Verbinski takes the “Weapons” route, stopping the action to focus on the lives of several volunteers. That includes Michael Pena and Zazie Beetz as substitute teachers at a school where smartphone-obsessed teens rule the roost.
Be afraid.
Haley Lu Richardson gets a close-up as a troubled 20-something who swiftly falls in love against all odds.
And, in the most heart-wrenching subplot, Juno Temple plays a mother who loses her son to a school shooting only to be reunited with him in short order.
The latter is … complicated. Creepy, even.
The film’s focus on school shootings seriously damages its bleak but whimsical tone. Yes, all this talk about the world as we know ending is dire, but watching a mother mourn for her child is specific and gut-wrenching.
Even worse, that subplot doesn’t necessarily gel with the other messages afoot.
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“Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” has plenty to say about gun violence, social media gone amok and, ultimately, artificial intelligence. Some of it plays out as wise and wonderful. Other times, the hectoring can be a bit much.
It’s painful to ding a movie this original, this willing to subvert our expectations. Rockwell keeps it all together, a Herculean task given the potpourri of themes, visual gags and characters.
Yet even he can’t save a film that doesn’t know what’s best for it. “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” keeps piling on the absurdities until we want to scream, “Enough! We get it!”
But no, Verbinski lacks any sense of restraint, so the giddy joy we felt in the first hour slowly seeps away. By the end, a dour twist on the film’s existing formula, you’ll pine for the manic nature of those first few scenes where everything seemed mysterious and new.
HiT or Miss: “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” is a glorious mashup of social commentary and sci-fi silliness that doesn’t know to leave well enough alone.