Shadows on the Wall | Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die

dir Gore Verbinski
scr Matthew Robinson
prd Gore Verbinski, Robert Kulzer, Erwin Stoff, Oly Obst, Denise Chamian
with Sam Rockwell, Juno Temple, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Pena, Zazie Beetz, Tom Taylor, Asim Chaudhry, Artie Wilkinson-Hunt, Riccardo Drayton, Georgia Goodman, Daniel Barnett, Dominique Maher
release US 13.Feb.26,
UK 20.Feb.26
26/South Africa 2h14

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temple, chaudhry, rockwell,pena, goodman and richardson

Brisk and energetic, this satirical thriller kicks off with a pointed rant about how addictive media is destroying society. Director Gore Verbinski gives the film a driving pace while allowing the actors to find vivid character details in a series of Black Mirror-style sideroads. Meanwhile, the main adventure unfolds with madcap nuttiness. It's all rather pointed, and the story is very shaggy, but the actors make it entertaining.

In a Los Angeles diner, a flustered unnamed madman (Rockwell) claims to be from the future, warning that an apocalypse is imminent. And it's the fault of today's social media-obsessed culture. This is his 117th attempt to assemble a team to stop the coming catastrophe. Grieving mum Susan (Temple) and oddball party princess Ingrid (Richardson) offer new perspectives for their mission, which involves a kid (Wilkinson-Hunt) who is creating a super-intelligent AI that needs to be controlled. But there are shadowy figures chasing them, as well as people whose minds are being controlled by tech.

While the action unfolds in relentlessly wacky ways, some of the team members get extended flashbacks that construct the bigger picture of what's happening here. Teachers Mark (Pena) and Jane (Beetz) struggle with phone-wielding students who evolve into a hive-mind army. School shootings are so common that Susan is offered a clone of her murdered teen son (Drayton). And while looking for meaning in life, Ingrid falls for hunky pizza boy Tim (Taylor), who eschews technology but becomes consumed by virtual reality.

Rockwell flings himself into each scene with a terrific mix of cynicism and desperation. His own back-story explores how he is able to see beyond the grid, and what that has cost him. Within the ensemble cast, Temple and Richardson are able to bring out deeper emotional journeys for their characters, as past heartbreak gives them a nice sense of determination as the story reaches its eye-catching, increasingly bonkers climax.

Although the film is wildly uneven, big questions hold the interest, such as when the man asks what action people took when book and record stores began disappearing. Or if any of them know a single phone number by heart. And then there's the issue of whether an artificially perfect reality might be preferable to even our happiest real-world ever after. Beneath the messy chaos, this is a knowingly cautionary tale of how AI will try to give us everything we ever wanted, stripping away our humanity if we're not careful.

themes, language, violence 13.Feb.26

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