Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die

Late last night I went to see Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die and it is absolutely bonkers!  An unnamed man (Sam Rockwell) from a dystopian future arrives in the present day and takes all of the patrons of a popular Los Angeles diner hostage.  He is looking for a specific combination of people to help him save the fate of humanity but tells them that, since this is his 117th attempt, he is not very optimistic about their chances for survival.  He eventually coerces Bob (Daniel Barnett), Marie (Georgia Goodman), Scott (Asim Chaudhry), and the couple Mark (Michael Pena) and Janet (Zazie Beetz) to join him and then Susan (Juno Temple) and Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson) volunteer for reasons.  He explains that people in the future have become obsessed with virtual reality to the exclusion of their own reality and, as a result, the natural resources in the real world have run out causing a catastrophic number of deaths.  The only hope for the future is to find the nine-year-old boy responsible for creating the AI that is about to take over the world and install a safety protocol into the program (he doesn't want to destroy the program because he believes that AI is inevitable). However, there are forces working against him and mayhem ensues. I enjoyed the surreal tone and the satirical humor made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion but there is also a powerful message about the dangers of technology that really resonated with me, especially the scene showing students enslaved to their phones.  I also enjoyed Rockwell's performance because he commits fully to the insanity.  His physicality is almost manic and it is fun to watch, particularly when he is trying to convince the customers at the diner that the world is about to end.  I sometimes found the pacing to be a bit off because the action is periodically interrupted by flashbacks to the backstories of some of the characters and, while these are interesting and inform what is happening, the transitions back to the present are jarring.  I also think the third act is unwieldy and goes on far too long (the drawn out explanations of several twists become very tedious).  This was a mixed bag for me but it is entertaining and I recommend it to those who appreciate a bold, if not always effective, swing for the fences.