It can be challenging to put your phone away for the entire runtime of a movie and challenging still for some to not immediately grab it as the credits roll to log that movie on an app or post a quick reaction. Social media and the dopamine box in our pockets sing a sweet siren song, one that will hopefully be dulled by Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. In a meta-comment that asks us to pay attention, this latest wacky surrealist dark comedy has us to consider what the internet and AI are taking from us, and encourages us to act sooner rather than later.

Sam Rockwell leads as no Kyle Reese but an unnamed time traveler purporting to be from a bleak not-so-distant future. He’s seen the collapse of modern life due to a propensity towards social media brain rot that left half the population dead and the other unknowingly living in an apocalyptic hellscape. With a grain of knowledge that this night in this diner is the way to solve the future crisis, the time traveler gathers whatever combination of people seem willing to join his revolution hoping to find the magical combination that makes his plan succeed lest he have to start the night over again. While the future sees humanity doomed to live inside a utopic videogame, the man seems to live in a modern one where any failure means he must start from the beginning. On his hundredth or so attempt, he seems as close as ever.

Director Gore Verbinski came out of a decade-long retirement to get his scent on this zany dark comedy. Some of his slappier sensibilities came along for the ride, imbued mostly within Rockwell as the weirdo lead in a dirty clear trenchcoat you would follow into battle. This close-to-home feature about where we all seem to be headed is as fun as possible, marked with dark deadpan humour and an ensemble cast you won’t believe gave themselves over.

For all its zany bits, social satire, and pitch-black lampoons of our bizarre social media loving planet, there is a distinct lack of real teeth. Sure, it’s dystopic that teachers have caved to students and their phones and that cloned children are subsidized by the government if they’re victims of school shootings, but the satire hesitates to push past the glaring and lacks that brutal bite. (In good news for those who enjoy this movie and want more of the same) Films like Spontaneous have employed such bleak satire before with sharper effect, making Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die seem like a flick trying to catch up to its cohorts. It’s full up with references to Terminator, The Faculty, and the like, some meta-films themselves that have already been rolled into movies like Cooties, Ick, and Mom and Dad.

The non-linear storytelling is the strongest element of the narrative as it has the audience find the hero already well into his crusade, then gives it time to take in haunting vignettes that highlight just how weird things have gotten. Time is well spent with the complacent teachers struggling to capture students’ attention, a grieving mother trying to bond with an ad supported clone, and a young woman allergic to wi-fi. But for as zany as the vignettes are, they are built on similar on-the-nose messaging that’s been better executed by similar movies.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is exciting for the fact that it’s got a familiar cast and crew that will draw broader audiences into the weird-sci-fi-dark-comedy fray that’ll leave people primed to be referred to things like Relax, I’m From the Future, Rumours, Dream Scenario, and those others I couldn’t resist mentioning above. 

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die hits theaters February 13, 2026