Luck - Review Thread

Going into Luck, I honestly had some hope for a charming, Pixarian animated adventure (which is understandable, coming from the likes of John Lasseter -- feelings on the man's personal issues aside), but what I ended up getting was a pretty dull and lifeless product that feels more like a producer scrambling to maintain/re-establish his relevancy than actually turning in a quality film. You can clearly see flourishes and flashes of the type of ingenuity and heartfelt storytelling that normally drives a lot of the top-shelf animated features of today in Luck, but those are often drowned out by an over-commitment to world-building. The film DOES earn points for creating an honestly well-realized world with The Land of Luck, yet loses points for ultimately emphasizing those inner mechanics over the emotional pull of the story. It starts out with a solid emotional pull, but loses sight of that in its overeager attempts at world-building. Also not helping is the fact that the main character, Sam (voiced by Eva Noblezada, who does her best), a bad luck magnet who can't go five minutes without something unfortunate happening to her, just simply feels flat and uninteresting once you strip the story down to its core essentials. Again, she and the film begin with a solid motivation, but the more the movie goes on, the more you realize that Sam's bad luck gimmick is her most interesting feature. And it's like the film is trying to distract you from and make up for that fact by cramming so much uninteresting world-building into the story. I can't help but think how much more interesting the movie may have been if the action were kept in the real world and Sam would've had to battle her own bad luck while trying to help out her friend Hazel, while still being helped out by Bob (voiced by Simon Pegg). But of course, that would have probably been too low-key for the kiddies, who need something like The Land of Luck to keep them entertained.

It's clear to tell that Luck has its heart in the right place, but it loses sight and hold of said heart simply by trying to do too much. If it had kept things simpler, I think this could've been a lot more delightful and charming, but as it stands, this film is just an overcooked and derivative misstep.