Director: Gore Verbinski
Cast: Sam Rockwell, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Peña, Juno Temple
Have I Seen it Before: Never
Did I Like It: Can I complain about the title for a moment before I launch into anything else? I’m writing the review, so of course I can. I have yet to be able to refer to the film—I am counting when purchasing my tickets—that I haven’t had to look at a poster of the film to get it right. Maybe I’d eventually get on board with it, if it wasn’t such a tiny part of the film. Aside from one reference at the mid-point, and a bit of a refrain at the end, it is absent. I half expected the film to be based on a graphic novel or video game, where the refrain was going to be far more important and simply didn’t translate very well to film. But no, this is a film called Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, and that is, at best, a few minutes of a 2-hour-plus film.
Now, that we have that out of the way.
I was never very found of suicide. What a wild way to start a review, but what I’m refering to is the practice of pouring some of every available soda at a fountain into a cup. There were and are plenty of of sodas I just don’t like, so mixing them in never felt like something I was interested in.
And yet, in this film, I can see the appeal. What we have here is pouring every flavor of sci-fi one can get their hands on into one film, like some kind of Twilight Zone smoothie. I enjoy all of those flavors on their own, so the mixture might be something I can get behind. For the most part, it is. It’s a brisk adventure movie with interesting characters, well performed by actors who I have enjoyed in other stuff. I laughed at several points. It is an enjoyable film. The problem comes when the film is—mostly in its back half, where the indiividual flavors—especially those parts taken from The Terminator (1984)—rise to the surface, and the entire affair is a little too predictable.
You might have another complaint, dear reader. You might see the adventures of the man from the future (Rockwell) as counterfeit. He ultimately can’t impact what is going to happen. You might start dusting off comparisons not to the original Terminator, but instead Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003). But just as your compaints about Indiana Jones not affecting the plot of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) are wrong, so are they wrong here, too. Indy wasn’t searching for the Lost Ark, he was searching for some kind of reconciliation with Marion. So too, is the Man From the Future not really trying to steer time back into a more positive direction, he’s really trying to…
Well, I won’t contribute to spoiling the plot, but you’ll probably figure it out.