Good Luck is Good Fun

Criticizing technology, the movie title Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die takes advantage of clickbait, the phrase about promoting a product by using irresistible terms. Of course I want to see what that title involves. But I get some credit for using qualities of selectivity.  After all, the movie comes from director Gore Verbinski, whose works I’ve enjoyed like the first Pirates of the Caribbean and even—much to the horror of other critics—The Lone Ranger. Plus, I always admire star Sam Rockwell, an Oscar winner with an eclectic body of work. I also appreciate the lesser-known Haley Lu Richardson, grown up from Edge of Seventeen but maintaining an aura of intelligent sarcasm. The stars join a series of other characters in Matthew Robinson’s satirical variation of The Terminator and Groundhog Day, a time travel story where action repeats itself when a man from the future returns to prevent a bad world from happening.  Bearded, his beanie hat and plastic raincoat adorned with wires and bomb accoutrements, Rockwell plays his forte for crazy as he forces a team to join him on his mission to save the world. Forget any Arnold Schwarzenegger tough guy approach, these fighters stumble and look dorky enough to pass as an acting team from a mental hospital. But that fits into the joke, which includes a massive threat from a very large kitty cat. Cast members, along with the writer and director, clearly get a hoot out of their outrageous shenanigans, though ultimately a valid and serious point gets made about impacts of social media, cellphones, and unrestrained artificial intelligence. Serious, but as the movie team suggests, have fun.