{"id":2961,"date":"2026-03-13T19:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T19:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/?p=2961"},"modified":"2026-03-14T15:46:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T15:46:41","slug":"good-luck-have-fun-dont-die-our-a-i-future-will-be-a-gilded-cage-maybe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/2026\/03\/13\/good-luck-have-fun-dont-die-our-a-i-future-will-be-a-gilded-cage-maybe\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cGood Luck, Have Fun, Don\u2019t Die\u201d Review: Our A.I. Future Will Be a Gilded Cage, Maybe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So Hollywood is rightfully worried about how A.I. fakes, perhaps in the (near) future, could disrupt its movie-making biz: In the meantime, A.I. is all over the big screen: Gore Verbinski\u2019s new movie\u00a0Good Luck, Have Fun, Don\u2019t Die<\/em>\u00a0is right up that digital alley.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Screenshot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s actually pretty good, wacky and frenetic, with an A.I. takeover\/apocalypse of sorts at its heart. (Not one to miss a trend, last weekend SNL<\/em> had a funny commercial about an A.I. product called \u201cOtezla\u201d that was clever.) Sam Rockwell, who had a scene-stealing performance in Season 3 of White Lotus<\/em>, plays The Man from the Future, both to comic and dramatic effect. The plot is zany, hurried, and at first thoroughly confusing: Rockwell shows up at Norm\u2019s diner in L.A., dressed in rags and plastic like a homeless man, and announces to all patrons that he needs volunteers to help him accomplish a mission for which he was sent to present day from some time in a murky, dystopian future in which humans are ruled by A.I. At first you wonder why the other customers put up with his harangue, but he does have a bomb strapped to his chest (or it looks like one). That\u2019s the splashy\/hyper beginning to the action and perhaps the zenith of its confusion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once that hostage-situation-of-sorts gets established the movies settles down and the fun starts. A handful of peripheral characters are introduced, who all have some reason to believe Rockwell. When the police come Rockwell and his \u201cvolunteers\u201d set off on their Quest: To save the world by installing some A.I. coding safeguards that will prevent it from dominating humankind. The last third or quarter of the movie is the best: It\u2019s at times funny, whimsical, and action-packed. Juno Temple plays a crucial role as a mother with a video-game-obsessed teenager and Haley Lu Richardson (who also starred in Season 2 of White Lotus) as a gal allergic to computers and wifi. The director, Gore Verbinski, is known for a string of big hits, including the Pirates of the Caribbean <\/em>movies and The Ring <\/em>(2002), and as crazy as the action gets, everything makes sense by the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hollywood is rightfully worried about how A.I. fakes, perhaps in the (near) future, could disrupt it\u2019s movie-making biz: In the meantime, A.I. is all over the big screen: Gore Verbinski\u2019s new movie\u00a0Good Luck, Have Fun, Don\u2019t Die\u00a0is right up that digital alley.\u00a0 Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[229,230,231,367,368],"tags":[370,374,372,373,371],"class_list":["post-2961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-i","category-a-i-apocalypse","category-a-s-i-artificial-super-intelligence","category-comic-movies","category-gore-verbinski-movies","tag-good-luck-have-fun-dont-die","tag-a-i-movies","tag-haley-lu-richardson","tag-juno-temple","tag-sam-rockwell"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t