Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (2026) – Review

Quick thoughts

1. The world needs more apocalyptic time-loop action-comedy-drama films
2. The cast is stacked. Sam Rockwell, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Peña, Zazie Beetz, and Juno Temple rule.
3. I had no clue where it was going, and that is part of the fun
4. Always engage your emergency brake while chasing time travelers
5. The much-advertised Apple Berry Peach tea sounds pretty good. The marketing worked. 
6. Pepsi. Pepsi. Pepsi. Pepsi. Pepsi
7. It makes me happy that Gore Verbinski loves Repo Man (1984)

If you’re going to hire one actor to play a stressed-out time traveler who delivers an 11-page monologue and is dressed like a vagabond from the Blade Runner world, you can’t do any better than Academy Award winner Sam Rockwell. Rockwell is no stranger to science fiction/fantasy as he’s appeared in Moon, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Mute, Cowboys and Aliens, and Galaxy Quest, so his hyper-active time traveler character named The Man From the Future never feels out of place in a modern-day world obsessed with cell phones. For the opening 11-page monologue delivered in the Los Angeles-based Norm’s Diner, Verbinski allowed Rockwell to create the path he would take through the diner as he tries to sell the patrons on embarking on a suicide mission.  Production Designer David Brisbin then constructed the diner set to service his performance (thank you press notes), by creating a “dance floor” which allowed Rockwell to do his thing (this is unrelated, but watch this supercut of Rockwell dancing – it’s great). 

The Man From the Future (it’s his name) looks like he used a futuristic dumpster filled with computer odds and ends to send himself back in time for his world-saving mission. It’s the 117th time he’s attempted the mission, and the weight of saving the world, on top of watching 116 groups of people fail (and die terribly) has turned him into a motor-mouthed cynic who never allows his thumb to leave the trigger of his time vest (that sends him back to the future). He’s not there to rescue a waitress from a murderous android; he’s there to gather several diner patrons (preferably 7), so they can travel to a suburban home where the uber-AI is about to be unleashed.  From the jump, The Man From the Future is ‘on the clock’ as he has a ticking clock that’s ticking away towards the end of humanity. It’s his job to traverse a dangerous Los Angeles hellscape littered with masked killers, machete-wielding unhomed people and phone-obsessed teenagers.  

The 117th crew is made up of single-mom Susan (Juno Temple), cell phone (and Wifi) allergic Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson), high school teachers Mark and Janet (Michael Peña and Zazie Beetz), and three other characters who aren’t important enough to have their backstories told through flashbacks. It’s a ragtag group, but there’s something about them that feels special. Most importantly, they’re led by a character played by Sam Rockwell. The movie works because Sam Rockwell can jump over tables and sass his team while wearing a 40-pound costume. He’s cynical, optimistic, angry, charming, and rakish at the same time. He’s seen a lot of death, but he won’t stop until he can save the world. Equally important are the grounded performances from Juno Temple and Haley Lu Richardson who humanize the hijinks as they deal with school shootings (they happen every day), secretive cloning facilities (that look like Apple stores) and bloody noses caused by an allergy to cell phones.

Part of the fun of Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die are kernels of information and character backstories spread throughout the film, so I don’t want to spoil anything that will make the viewing experience less enjoyable. I will say that the world the movie takes place in is wildly cynical, as school shootings happen so frequently that parents (who love the Tim Burton-directed Mars Attacks) expect their child to be shot while going to class. In fact, high schools have gotten so bad that the students stare into their phones during class are all appalled when they have to read Anna Karenina instead of watching the “ancient” 2012 film or listening to the 35-hour audiobook. It’s a bleak place that feels right at home in the worlds of The Terminator, 12 Monkeys, and The World’s End. 

After most major studios passed on the script, Verbinski forced the movie into existence by starting the casting process and announcing each new cast member (getting Sam Rockwell helped a lot). After learning the movie would be too expensive to shoot in Los Angeles, Vancouver and Winnipeg, Verbinski traveled to South Africa to get the movie made. Constantin Film and BriarCliff Entertainment eventually signed on to fund and distribute the project, and now we have a fun time-travel movie that is too out there for most major studios. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is the type of film that could only be made by someone like Gore Verbinski, who, between The Ring, Rango, Pirates of the Caribbean 1-3, Mousehunt, The Weather Man, and A Cure for Wellness, knows how to combine humor, drama, action, horror and animation into something unique. Before he was directing gigantic blockbusters, Verbinski played in several punk bands and directed music videos for Bad Religion and NOFX, so he has a punk side that came in handy when getting this movie made. It’s actually kind of a miracle that he and writer Matthew Robinson got an apocalyptic time-loop action-comedy-drama made. 

Final Thoughts – Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is worth 117 trips to the theater.