I may be one of the few people remaining on the planet to both maintain a landline telephone and to decline to avail myself of the alleged benefits of a smartphone. And there is nothing in the new invigorating, imaginative science-fiction comedy Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die that leads me to reconsider my choices.

The savvy, witty movie from director Gore Verbinski stakes out an explicitly anti-AI and, more broadly, anti-digital-age position that is refreshing, even fortifying, in a time when rapid, dehumanizing technological advancement is taken as a glum given. Sam Rockwell stars as a wily, cynical time-traveling refugee from the future. Never named, the man is the bearer of bad news to America in the 2020s: In the years to come, he asserts, the public will have become so thoroughly immersed in virtual reality, and will have so completely abdicated their civilizational responsibilities to AI, that the world will be on the verge of collapse. 

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In the opening scene, Rockwell’s character teleports to a present-day diner, where he holds court with all the mad-scientist oddness of Doc Brown. As if to prove his point, the diner’s patrons are seen scrolling their phones, recoiling from another’s touch, and expressing general indifference to the digital apocalypse foretold by the time traveler.

In addition to Back to the Future, the movie liberally incorporates elements from The Terminator, They Live, and Groundhog Day. But because it marshals them to tell the timeliest of tales, it never feels like a retread or homage. In fact, the only thing old-fashioned about the movie is the sturdily constructed, fluidly realized direction by........

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