Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (2026) - A Madcap Time-Travel Joyride

A "Man From the Future" arrives at a diner in Los Angeles where he must recruit the precise combination of disgruntled patrons to join him on a one-night quest to save the world from the terminal threat of a rogue artificial intelligence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm4WbapDzDQ

Alright… here’s the thing about Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die - this is not a movie you watch so much as a movie you survive. It’s like Gore Verbinski found a box labeled “Unfinished Ideas From 2012–2025”, dumped it into a blender with a Red Bull, and hit purée. And somehow… it works.

The premise alone sounds like something you’d hear from a guy at 2 AM in a Waffle House parking lot: a manic “Man From the Future” storms into an L.A. diner and recruits a random group of miserable strangers to stop an AI apocalypse that happens later that night. That future guy is Sam Rockwell, and if you’ve ever wondered what Rockwell would look like after failing to save the world 117 times in a row, congratulations - this movie answers that question with the enthusiasm of a Labrador retriever chasing a tennis ball.

What unfolds is basically Groundhog Day meets 12 Monkeys meets Big Trouble in Little China, with a splash of Stepford Wives social satire poured over the top like questionable gravy. The tone jumps around so much you might get cinematic whiplash, but there’s a weird charm in watching a film that refuses to stay in its lane. One minute we’re dealing with grief and trauma, the next minute there are zombie-like teenagers glued to their phones, and then - because why not - a mutant kaiju cat shows up like it wandered in from a different movie entirely.

And honestly? I loved that chaos.

Sam Rockwell absolutely detonates the screen. He doesn’t play the future guy like some confident sci-fi hero - he plays him like a sleep-deprived Reddit moderator who knows the world is ending and nobody is reading the pinned post. Wild-eyed, desperate, funny, unhinged… it’s peak Rockwell. The man has always had that ping-pong-ball energy, like he might ricochet off the walls at any moment, and here it’s weaponized perfectly. You believe he’s lived this nightmare loop over and over, failing every time, and still keeps trying.

The supporting cast pulls their weight too. Zazie Beetz and Michael Peña as burnt-out teachers battling phone-addicted teens feels weirdly believable in a dystopian comedy sort of way. Juno Temple brings genuine emotional weight as a grieving mother, which helps ground the insanity. Haley Lu Richardson might be the secret MVP - a socially awkward diner server with a Wi-Fi allergy wearing princess-adjacent outfits like she got dressed during a power outage. She’s adorable, neurotic, and somehow the emotional glue of the group.

What I appreciated most is that underneath all the absurdity, there’s actual heart. Each character has a reason to hate the hyper-digital world they live in, and the movie leans into that frustration with the subtlety of a brick through a window. This isn’t gentle satire. It’s more like satire with brass knuckles. There are moments that get surprisingly dark - including some ideas about commercialization and tragedy that feel almost too sharp for a comedy - but the film never stays in the darkness long enough to become depressing. It keeps bouncing back into humor, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes brilliantly.

Visually, you can tell this wasn’t a $200-million blockbuster. The budget reportedly hovered around the low-20-million range, and it shows. Some effects look scrappy. Some sets look like they were borrowed from another production during lunch break. But instead of hurting the movie, it gives it this punk-rock energy. It feels handmade. Like a band recording an album in a garage because no studio would sign them - and that rawness becomes the appeal.

Verbinski clearly wanted to make something weird without studio interference, and mission accomplished. This thing is stitched together from genres like Frankenstein’s monster: time-loop thriller, sci-fi comedy, monster movie, social satire, action chaos. Sometimes the seams show. Sometimes the pacing wobbles. Sometimes you’re not entirely sure what rules the story is operating under. But there’s an undeniable creativity pulsing through it.

Now… it’s not perfect.

The biggest issue is tonal balance. The movie swings between comedy and tragedy like a pendulum powered by espresso. One moment you’re laughing at absurd action, the next it tries to land emotional weight, and occasionally those transitions feel clunky. There are also plot elements that feel under-explained. By the end you might have questions. Possibly many questions. The film seems comfortable leaving gaps for the audience to fill in, which some people will love and others will find frustrating.

But here’s my philosophy: I’ll take an ambitious mess over a safe, forgettable movie any day of the week. At least this one has personality. It swings big. It tries things. It risks looking ridiculous - and sometimes succeeds - but it never feels boring.

And in 2026, when so many films feel like they were engineered by committee and optimized by spreadsheet, watching something this strange is refreshing. It’s like finding an indie comic book wedged between corporate superhero franchises. Rough edges and all, there’s passion in it.

The humor lands more often than it misses. Some jokes are dark. Some are slapstick. Some are just pure absurdity. The satire about technology and culture isn’t subtle, but it doesn’t need to be. The movie knows exactly how ridiculous it is, and it leans into that self-awareness.

Walking out, I had that rare feeling: I wasn’t sure I’d just watched a great movie… but I knew I’d watched something memorable. And honestly, that counts for a lot.

This is probably destined for cult-classic territory. The kind of film people discover later and say, “Wait… you’ve never seen this?” It’s too weird for mainstream dominance, but perfect for audiences who enjoy off-beat sci-fi with personality.

If you like clean storytelling, polished visuals, and neatly wrapped endings, this might drive you crazy. But if you enjoy wild ideas, chaotic energy, and Sam Rockwell going full chaos goblin while trying to save humanity… you’re going to have a good time.

Final verdict: messy, creative, funny, occasionally uneven - but undeniably entertaining.

Ranking: 7.5/10

A gloriously unhinged sci-fi ride that trips over its own ambition sometimes, but is so weirdly charming you can’t help but enjoy it.