“Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” is a Satirical Blast (Review)

The 2000s were kind of a wild time to grow up, for a lot of reasons. One of the more fascinating positives, in hindsight, is how many massive, mainstream blockbusters were being handed to absolute creative oddballs. You had Sam Raimi, fresh off The Evil Dead, directing Spider-Man. Peter Jackson went from the splatter-soaked chaos of Bad Taste to shepherding The Lord of the Rings. And Gore Verbinski, the mind behind The Ring, was steering the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

It was an era where tentpole blockbusters still felt personal. These films existed in a very specific sweet spot, wedged between old-school Hollywood systems and rapidly evolving technology. Today, when an indie or low-budget director jumps to a blockbuster, especially within franchises like Marvel, it’s often with the understanding they’ll function more as a director-for-hire than an auteur. The 2000s were different. Raimi, Jackson, and Verbinski carried their horror-rooted instincts, quirks, and creative fingerprints straight into big-budget studio filmmaking, and you could feel it.

While Raimi and Jackson remain rightly celebrated, Verbinski’s legacy is messier. After three hugely successful Pirates films and the underrated Rango, his career hit turbulence with 2013’s The Lone Ranger, a troubled production that flopped and only grew more controversial over time. Since then, Verbinski has retreated into smaller, stranger projects. His latest, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, arriving in February, is a chaotic, adrenaline-soaked return to form.

TOP FIVE THINGS ABOUT “GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON’T DIE”

5. A Present, Prescient Story

So what exactly is Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die? Honestly, it’s a lot.

At its core, it’s a sci-fi thriller-comedy, built around a time-travel hook and absolutely drenched in pitch-black satire. That kind of premise can be risky. Films that try to comment too precisely on the current moment often end up feeling corny, forced, or already outdated by the time they hit screens. There are exceptions, of course. Rian Johnson’s Knives Out films have proven you can pull sharp social commentary from small, specific observations without tripping over yourself. But for every success story, there are plenty of misfires.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die pulls off the balancing act with confidence, largely thanks to Gore Verbinski’s iron grip on tone and a sharp script from Matthew Robinson. From its opening moments, the film feels fully plugged into the anxieties, obsessions, and tech-driven rhythms of right now, and it never lets go. Instead of name-dropping trends or chasing relevance, it engages with modern technology and culture in ways that feel thoughtful, pointed, and alive.

The result is a movie that isn’t just set in the present but actively conversing with it, asking smart questions while keeping the momentum moving all the way through its final moments.

4. The Structure

Hearing that the film is about a time traveler from the future coming back to the present and trying to stop a technological doomsday might conjure comparisons to something like James Cameron’s The Terminator, but in reality, Verbinski’s film feels like what would happen if you took John Carpenter’s Escape From New York and spliced it together with a few disparate episodes of Black Mirror.

Throughout the film’s first two acts, the present-tense story is interspersed with more standalone tales centered on primary characters and the events that led them here. It’s the kind of “two weeks earlier” setup you’ve undoubtedly seen executed horrendously many times before, but here it actually works. The structure allows Verbinski and company to essentially craft an anthology film, in which each separate piece of science-fiction satire is stitched together by a larger, overarching race against the clock. The pacing and tonal shifts don’t always go off without a hitch, but the sheer, audacious ambition on display is frequently gobsmacking and works far more often than it doesn’t.

3. A Satire with Bite

The whole idea of “phone bad” has well and truly been done to death in media, to the point where even the thought of seeing it retread can feel exhausting. That said, and this should go without saying, there’s a tremendous amount of authentic validity to the idea; it’s only grown stale because of its sheer familiarity.

Thankfully, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die takes this worn-out concept and reshapes it into something that feels genuinely sharp again. Far more than a simple “phone bad” message, Verbinski’s film skewers the disassociated nature of modern culture as a whole, and it pulls no punches. Where so many projects feel heavily market-tested, offering toothless critiques designed not to offend anyone, this film is bold and refuses to soften its social commentary. The result is an ultra-modern satire that takes the current cultural moment to task in ways that are fascinating, compelling, and deeply engaging.

Without spoiling too much, there’s an entire section of the film that deals with school shootings, and the pitch-black comedy in that sequence is both funny and painful. It’s so uncomfortably precise in its lampooning that it genuinely stings.

2. Sam Rockwell’s Performance

Sam Rockwell has long been an ace in the hole for many a filmmaker, a pinch-hitter who rarely, if ever, misses. I’ve been a fan of Rockwell and his distinct approach to scenery-chewing for years, but he has never been better than he is here. Rockwell and Verbinski make for a potent pairing, with the actor’s robust physicality captured by Verbinski and cinematographer James Whitaker in ways that feel immediate and palpable.

From the very opening scene, Rockwell commands the screen, with Verbinski clearly having a blast covering every minute detail of both the moment and the anarchy of Rockwell’s character. I hesitate to draw the comparison, given the cultural legacy and all, but Rockwell’s performance here does feel aptly comparable to Johnny Depp’s turn in Verbinski’s Pirates of the Caribbean films. In both cases, it’s a long-valued performer landing a defining role that distills everything they do best, paired with a filmmaker willing to give them the runway and capture them in the most electric light possible.

1. Verbinski Going for Fucking Broke

The world has changed enormously since the 2000s, and yet, strangely, very little. So many of the horrors and atrocities that plague our present-tense world were born from seeds planted back during that era, and Verbinski’s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die feels keenly aware of this. Not only does the film center on a character removed from his own time and space, but the film itself feels like a relic from a different moment; a nasty little black-humored science-fiction thriller with big-name stars, huge special effects, and extravagant action sequences. In short, it’s the kind of original film we’re seeing less and less of in today’s modern moviegoing climate. This more classical approach to craft and ambition pairs with hyper-modern subject matter to create a unique kind of alchemy, and Verbinski is exactly the right guy to sell the ever-loving shit out of it.

By the time you reach the third act, Verbinski and company are delivering some of the most imaginative, surreal, and wildly gonzo visuals you’re likely to see in a cinema this year.

RGM GRADE

(B+)

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is Gore Verbinski screaming into the void, refusing to go gently into that good night. It’s a film with the guts to critique modern society, cinema, and everything in between, yet it closes on a strangely melancholic and affirming note: it’s not about whether you win or lose the struggle, but about having enough integrity left in your bones to keep fighting the good fight. If that isn’t the perfect culmination of Verbinski’s career, I’m not sure what is.