Film enthusiasts have been awaiting the return of Gore Verbinski just as much as they’ve lamented the encroachment of AI into media. Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die grants both of their wishes: the return of the Pirates of the Caribbean auteur and a righteous slamming of AI in a wide release film. Incidentally, a third wish was also granted that the film will be extremely good.
Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die is a rousing success due to its ensemble cast led by a dynamite Sam Rockwell, relevant and well-executed social commentary, zany direction from Gore Verbinski, and an off-kilter tone that makes sure the audience is having a blast.
Get BWT in your inbox!
Get BWT in your inbox!
At a diner, a strange, homeless-looking man (Sam Rockwell) shuffles in with a bomb strapped to his chest, telling the patrons he’s not robbing them. Instead, he claims he’s here from the future to save the world from an impending AI threat. Not only that, he’s done this several times in a sort of time loop. He grabs a group of customers (Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Peña, Zazie Beetz, Asim Chaudhry, and Juno Temple) to try to stop the impending apocalypse. Hopefully, this go-around will fix the world.
Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die is provocative and scary depicting the potential menace of AI.
A title like Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die hits like a bolt of electricity. Provocative, scary, and super-charging. Thankfully, Gore Verbinski has the juice to match such a title. While lower-budget than his previous blockbusters, Verbinski’s film just moves from frame one. A lot of that is due to the amazing team he has behind him.
Each shot from director of photography James Whitaker has intention. Every chord of the jangly score from Geoff Zanelli (Leo) gets the foot tapping in anticipation. This is maybe one of a handful of scores of late that I can actively remember afterwards. It’s surprisingly not a stretch to say that Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die is Gore Verbinski’s most ambitious film to date. It’s also his funniest, thanks to his partner in crime on this project, screenwriter Matthew Robinson (Love & Monsters).
Robinson is as great at constructing comic moments as he is at thinking outside of the box. Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die has a somewhat nonlinear structure that often digresses to show the backstories of the crew the man from the future has assembled. Not only is this a successful storytelling tactic, arguably more so than this year’s acclaimed Weapons, but it also allows for further exploration of the film’s primary theme.
Gore Verbinski returns with his funniest and most ambitious film to date.
Artificial intelligence, big tech, and over-reliance on technology in general are ruining our lives. This flick says that message with its whole chest. Although it does do a little bit of speculating, Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die‘s version of artificial intelligence is pointedly similar to our own.
Teenagers mindlessly scrolling brain-rotting content, AI being used to fill the void for the bereaved as a sort of “companion,” and the general synthetic, inhuman feel of artificial intelligence comes across very well. One of Verbinski’s films’ most interesting extrapolations is that this tech is actively making Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson) sick.
Haley Lu Richardson (The White Lotus Season 2) and Sam Rockwell (Argylle) are the beating heart of Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die. Richardson brings a lot of pathos as someone in the present who can, through her physical ailments, feel the over-reliance on tech and the AI boom sapping the humanity out of humankind. Rockwell, despite his crackpot ways in his enigmatic roles, represents a desperation to save us from ourselves. Together, the two make an impassioned plea not only in the film, but to the audiences themselves, to stop this beast before it’s too late.
Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die is, in and of itself, an impassioned plea. Judging by the reactions from the world premiere audience at Fantastic Fest 2025, it did its job. Gore Verbinski is back and better than ever in a film that has it all. More importantly, Gore Verbinski returns with a film that has the capacity to open people’s eyes to where the modern obsession with AI could lead us. Heed the warning.
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die premiered at the 2025 Fantastic Fest Film Festival. The film releases in theaters on January 30, 2026.
