Take 57: Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die

In the sci-fi dark comedy, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, Sam Rockwell plays a man who claims to be on his 118 trip to back to a Los Angeles dinner in order to recruit the right combination of the people there to prevent the destruction of the world at the ands of AI. Ultimately, he decides on Mark & Janet (Michael Pena and Zazie Beetz),two teachers, Susan (Juno Temple), a mother who has just lost her son to a school shooting, Scott, (Asim Chaudhry), the difficult one, Marie (Georgia Goodman) who really just wanted pie, and last picked, Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson. Once the team is forged, they have one night to do what 117 other teams before them could not, and save the future, hey set out to save the future.

Sam Rockwell is the focal point of the movie. He’s a good blend of humorous, bumbly, and earnest and is totally believable as this guy with this unbelievable story, or is he as bat sh*t crazy as he looks? There are times when you the audience aren’t always 100%. As central as he is to the story, his wouldn’t be anywhere without his crew who we get to know over the course of the film through elaborate, character driven flashbacks that show these people before they find themselves at the diner faithful night.

Equally important to the success of the film are the members of the team. Mark & Janet (Michael Pena & Zazie Beetz), teachers who have encountered this social media/AI threat first hand when the students of their school are brainwashed by weird app and become literal mindless zombies. There is Susan (Juno Temple), an anxiety ridden mother who’s son Darrin has just been killed in a school shooting and who has been returned to her in the from of a clone. She seems to know stuff for some reason and invaluable to the team. Despite his reluctance to recruit her, Ingrid is especially adverse to technology, lost her boyfriend to the lure of it, and ultimately becomes crucial to the team’s mission. Actually, they all do. The blend of their personalities and pasts could just be the right combination to finally succeed.

Maybe.

In the later part of the movie, things got crazy. Like, what did I just watch? It’s like they kept it together for as long as they could and then it all just came busting out. So much I just didn’t get. But it was a lot of fun throughout. And the ending… they actually really stuck the landing.

When I first saw the trailer, I knew this one would be fun, and it was. Although I have never seen Shaun of the Dead, this movie seems like it is from the same ilk. Does it all make sense? Not really. But did it work? Absolutely. My score: 8.8. It knew what it was from start to finish.

Got something to say? Good luck with that. And until next time… it’s gonna be a SCREAM…