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The use of artificial intelligence in movie-making is frequently a topic of controversy, with some films openly admitting to or being accused of relying on AI. Many streaming films are humorously suspected of being crafted with an algorithmic touch both in their writing and in their connection with audiences. AI anxiety has escalated to the point where questionable CGI or clichéd dialogue—once merely signs of mediocre Hollywood production—are now seen as potential indicators of more sinister anti-creative forces.
Interestingly, the films themselves rarely amplify this paranoia. This is especially true for those featuring Chris Pratt, who may owe his rise to algorithmic success stories like The Tomorrow War. In his recent thriller, Mercy, Pratt stars in a narrative surprisingly relaxed about AI, despite the film’s depiction of an e-justice system that can sentence criminals to death if they fail to prove their innocence in a swift, lawyer-free trial. Ironically, this killbot system shows reason if one is a skilled detective. Similarly, Pratt’s prior Netflix film, The Electric State, portrays synthetic beings in a post-war world as endearing rather than menacing. Beyond Pratt’s projects, other films like the short-lived Netflix hit M3GAN 2.0 and last autumn’s Tron: Ares have painted potentially villainous AIs as sympathetic entities striving to become more human for peaceful purposes.
Creating stories with empathetic robots, a long-standing theme in science fiction, now risks getting flagged as AI glorification. Many classic films and books featuring sympathetic robots might be accused of stealthily pushing pro-AI agendas if they were to debut today. However, there’s a sense of relief in the clear anti-AI stance of Gore Verbinski’s new movie, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. The title itself echoes a tech guru’s casual, disruptive advice to break rules and innovate rapidly.
The film, reminiscent of Terry Gilliam’s style with a touch of Futurama, stars Sam Rockwell as an unnamed future man who time-travels to a present-day setting that hints at a not-too-distant future. His mission is to thwart the creation of an AI singularity that would trigger an apocalypse. To spread his warning and assemble a team to confront this threat across Los Angeles, he first has to capture the attention of people glued to their screens.
Eventually, a band of misfits joins him, turning the story into a sci-fi anthology that delves into the backstories of characters like Haley Lu Richardson, who plays a tech-averse woman; Michael Peña and Zazie Beetz, a teaching couple grappling with technology’s grip on children; and Juno Temple, portraying a grieving mother. In a bold move, Verbinski and screenwriter Matthew Robinson explore the dark humor in the epidemic of school shootings, depicted as being managed through tech-driven solutions that feel like a complete surrender. What might seem like deadpan detachment, especially amid Rockwell’s playful dialogue, reveals a profoundly bleak yet human narrative beneath the desperate technological fixes.
In the film, which has Terry Gilliam vibes by way of Futurama, Sam Rockwell plays an unnamed man from the future who time-travels to what looks more or less like our present, though eventually some filled-in details suggest it may be somewhere – not too far off – in the future. The stranger, outfitted in leaky tubes and scruff suggesting Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys, explains that he has been sent back to prevent the formulation of an A.I. singularity that will eventually cause an apocalypse. Naturally, he must distract people from looking down at their glowing screens in order to even deliver his message, nevermind recruit a team to travel across Los Angeles and confront this threat.
Eventually, a group of misfits agrees to accompany him, and the movie becomes almost like a sci-fi anthology as it flashes back to fill in stories of characters played by Haley Lu Richardson (as a woman with a physiological reaction to tech who therefore doesn’t keep any devices handy); Michael Peña and Zazie Beetz (as a teacher couple directly confronted with the hold devices have over school-aged kids); and Juno Temple (a woman who has recently lost her son). In the most impressively daring segment, Verbinski and screenwriter Matthew Robinson mine pitch-black laughs from the epidemic of school shootings, which are being combatted with a tech-enabled form of what feels like utter surrender. What could read as deadpan disaffection, especially given the script’s forays into cutesy dialogue for the always-game Rockwell, is breathtakingly bleak with a sense of real humanity underneath the desperate tech solutions.
This might all sound more like a broad indictment of a screen-time-hypnotized culture, and to an extent, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is that. But what it does particularly well, and what many of its fellow A.I.-related movies seem reluctant to do, is formally connect A.I. to the passivity of device dependence, rather than loftily compare it to a genuine, human-like consciousness that deserves our potential respect. Of course, plenty of people fully accept A.I. as part of their devices, and use ChatGPT interchangeably with a search engine; that’s a whole problem unto itself. But unlike Mercy or its ilk, Verbinski’s film never errs on the side of moderation and trying to find some bizarre common ground between annihilation and survival. The closest it comes to acceptance of A.I. is admitting that it’s hard to tell whether this destructive force can actually, practically be stopped.
It all makes particular sense coming from Verbinski, because his work, almost all within the machinery of big Hollywood studios, often feels alive with the possibilities of what those resources can produce. His Pirates of the Caribbean movies may be swimming in CG, but their visual-effects spectacle is ornate and fully formed. His CG talking-animal feature Rango is weird and evokes Chinatown and Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. Even a seemingly misguided project like The Lone Ranger features one of the most exhilaratingly inventive action sequences of this century so far. He must be coming by his tech skepticism honestly, because his movies are full of technical wonders.
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die doesn’t go quite that far in its spectacle – despite all the stars and the sci-fi trappings, it’s an indie production, and its effects work has a madcap Scotch-tape charm. (Again: Very Gilliam.) It also has a Verbinski’s trademark bloat, as the movie meanders in its final section, especially once the attention-demanding change-ups of the character flashbacks are complete. It turns out that the big push against the coalescing forces of A.I. isn’t just unlikely; it’s kind of slapdash, too. Yet the spirt of the movie lingers, even as the particulars of some of its zig-zaggy storytelling fade. There was a time when almost any internet-critical movie was considered reactionary or alarmist, no matter how valid its points were. For A.I., most movies don’t go nearly hard enough, which makes Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die a market leader just for telling us to get off our stupid phones.
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.