“Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die” (2026) | Film Review

A man claiming to be from the future takes an innocent group of an iconic Los Angeles diner hostage in search of unlikely recruits in a quest to save the world.

“Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die” is a wacky, outlandish apocalyptic adventure that takes you into a world where the lines of AI and reality are blurred. This film wastes no time exposing our world ever declining attention spans and the global epidemic of brain rot. 

The film is structured over the course of one very eventful, chaotic day. We meet our lead, Sam Rockwell’s time traveller who plucks a group of unlikely heroes to help him save the world. As the story unfolds we retrace the steps of our characters, discovering what their days looked like. 

“Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die” is one of those films that catapults you into action, starting in a Pulp Fiction esque diner takeover and spiralling into a zombie apocalypse style adventure. Our ‘heroes’ are forced to face reality and question their surroundings. 

Visually, “Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die” has a retro feel but keeps the story tethered to reality. This feels like an exaggerated version of our world, with extreme lighting choices and dynamic camera movements the film is busy, the story is heated and the characters are hilariously confused. I loved the repetitive moments, showing us the monotonous motions of life and how little we notice. Cinematographer James Whitaker comments of the visuals of the film and how the look was able to pull off the aesthetic. 

The cast are dynamic and each bring a distinct character journey to the story. Adding a layer of disruption to the plot. Sam Rockwell does crazy well, he is the electric energy holding the group together. His decisions are bold and navigate each character through the adventure. Juno Temple, Haley Lu Richardson, Zazie Beetz, Ashim Chaudhry and Michael Peña all make for really fun characters to accompany Rockwell. The cast is strong and they embody the comedic chaos perfectly. 

The structure of the film was engaging, the characters were intriguing and the ending was a major plot twist. The ever growing feeling of impending doom grows with every second and the film was overall a fun time. Sam Rockwell and Haley Lu Richardson had the juiciest characters and arcs, I almost wish we’d had more time with them as a pairing. 

To conclude, “Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die” is a wild ride. A chaotic adventure about complicity, keeping our heads down as a society and ignoring the glaring issues in our world. This film is a political statement, an intelligent sentiment hidden underneath all the madness of phone zombies, AI takeovers and technical tornados. 

Probe Points

★★★★