Publication Date: 02-13-2026

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (2026) review

Dir. Gore Verbinski

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★½

His first film in nearly 10 years, Gore Verbinski’s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is the kind of whacko sci-fi comedy you should show anyone in your life who laments the lack of creativity in Hollywood.

Lofty yet nimble, and structured similarly to a show ala Black Mirror, Verbinski’s latest is his first in 10 years. Now is as good of a time as any to bring to attention the wealth of entertainment he’s provided us over the years. From the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films to the delightfully quirky animated comedy Rango, Verbinski doesn’t let grandiose budgets nor studio involvement dampen his proclivity for the absurd. Beyond his most recognizable projects, his debut, MouseHunt, felt like a freeform exercise in slapstick comedy; his unfairly maligned adaptation of The Lone Ranger was still underscored by a creative comic vision; and A Cure for Wellness, his last major release, marked his debut in the horror genre that felt decisively Cronenbergian at points.

Now, Verbinski, working off an uncommonly brave script from Matthew Robinson, takes aim at AI and the culture’s growing dependence on technology with Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. Here’s a multi-genre film that feels cut from the same creative vein as Everything Everywhere All at Once insofar that both the concept and execution feel like a challenge. In Verbinski’s case, the challenge is to common the despicable rise of AI slop and a loosening grip on reality with a story so comically potent, visually inspired, and devilishly witty that no computer could match its creative zeal.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die opens with an unnamed man (Sam Rockwell) storming into a Los Angeles diner one evening, claiming he’s from the future. He looks homeless, with an unkempt beard, dirty clothes, and a spaghetti mess of distended wires hanging from him. “All of this is going to go horribly wrong,” he says to a few dozens confused and disinterested patrons, most of whom are looking down at their phones.

Rockwell’s character is used to this. This is his 117th time entering this very diner in this fashion, with the goal in mind to assemble a crop of individuals to combat the resistance. As you can infer, he’s so far 0-116 in his attempts to save the world, so he cherry-picks another random group of people. Among them is a willing volunteer, a single mom named Susan (Juno Temple). Others include a pair of high school teachers, Mark (Michael Peña) and Janet (Zazie Beetz); an Uber driver named Sam (Asim Chaudhry), and a mysterious young woman named Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson), inexplicably dressed like a Disney princess.

Long-form, detailed flashbacks give us insights into each of these individuals in the preceding hours/days before they fatefully ended up at the diner. In the film’s most creative and diabolically funny aside, we learn Susan lost her son in a school shooting. Thankfully, some other mothers who lost their children inform her that scientists have developed clones to replace deceased children. Not all clones are created equal. Some are overly expository with their responses (Susan’s cloned son likes to state the calories and health benefits of the drinks he requests) and others come with ads. It takes a bold soul to make humor surrounding the aftermath of a school shooting, but it takes a true, brave satirist to do it with conviction and success. Tip of the cap to Matthew Robinson, whose diverse portfolio includes the Ricky Gervais film The Invention of Lying and the underrated (yes, underrated) Dora and the Lost City of Gold.

Meanwhile, Mark leans heavily on Janet when he’s tasked to be a substitute teacher. It’s Mark who inadvertently sets the impending technological apocalypses into motion by touching one of his student’s phones, which leads to the teens forming a hive-mind of sorts and threateningly pursuing adults. Poor Ingrid, on the other hand, is allergic to phones and Wi-Fi. Any presence of gadgets causes Ingrid’s nose to bleed and her consciousness to wan. Her boyfriend (Tom Taylor) initially commits to a life without technology, but gets wrapped up in new virtual reality technology.

As daring as Robinson’s comedy is — as he suggests that skills fundamental to the human experience, such as parenting, teaching, and grieving are ones we’re willing to outsource to technology — it’s a credit to Verbinski as a filmmaker that he’s able to rein in Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die‘s episodic structure to the point where narrative momentum isn’t lost. I found it similar to Zach Cregger’s Weapons. The strength of the story and the engagement of the performers dramatically outweighs what can occasionally feel like a staccato presentation. Furthermore, even before we’re finally firmly placed in the present, the film constantly harbors the kind of forward momentum that makes it engaging.

I believe Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die‘s dual-handedness as a brazenly original shot-to-the-arm for mainstream American cinema, coupled with its effectiveness as a warning during a pivotal time in the growing ubiquity of AI assures it will have enduring staying power. The best case scenario is it does for the perception of unchecked technological advancements what Mike Judge’s Idiocracy did for the uneasy amalgamation between pop culture and politics. Verbinski and Robinson’s worries clearly extend beyond even the vastness of creative media and into life itself. It’s going to take a great deal of “good luck” to avoid going down the path we seem to be barreling down at the moment.

Starring: Sam Rockwell, Haley Lu Richardson, Juno Temple, Michael Peña, Zazie Beetz, Asim Chaudhry, and Tom Taylor. Directed by: Gore Verbinski.