Sommerleigh Pollonais, Senior Writer
Plot: This is the story of Sam Greenfield, the unluckiest person in the world. Suddenly finding herself in the never-before-seen Land of Luck, she must unite with the magical creatures there to turn her luck around.
Review: Making an animated movie that stands out when there are so many of them released in a year can be really difficult. Most people will ignore them if they don’t have a Pixar or DreamWorks logo in front of their name. This year there were a lot of quality animated movies released; The Bad Guys, Turning Red, The Sea Beast are just a few of them. So it’s understandable if Luck flew under your radar, but this story of a young woman named Sam (Eva Noblezada) who has had terrible luck in her life yet manages to always look on the bright side of life, is worthy of attention as well.
First of all the world-building, while not on the scale of other animated movies, isn’t as terrible as critics is making it out to be. I absolutely LOVED The Sea Beast and The Bad Guys but both movies have familiar themes built into their tales with pirates and anthropomorphic animals respectively. Luck on the other hand is not something easily defined. Skydance Media and Ilion Animation Studios beautifully create a fantastical world where both good luck and bad luck is created and released into the human world. Yes, they have familiar tropes such as leprechauns, black cats and bunny rabbits with their lucky feet, but they also integrate concepts such as lucky pennies and a machine called the Randomizer that sends both bad and good luck out into the world in a way that feels both magical and accessible to younger viewers. I think it’s one of the better aspects of the movie, that and the wonderful voice cast. Simon Pegg (Bob the Black Cat) Whoopi Goldberg (The Captain of the leprechauns) Jane Fonda (Babe the dragon who acts as the CEO of Good Luck) and Lil Rel Howery (Marvin, Sam’s boss) are just some of the talented people who lend their voices to bring these characters to life.
Where Luck loses points is in the animation. While brightly coloured there isn’t much detail to these characters, and the fantasy world (while vibrant) feels void of any truly memorable details. Sam is also problematic as she’s written to be always positive even when life deals her a bad hand (which is constantly). She never loses her bubbly personality or her desire to bring good luck to others instead of herself. Again, younger audiences will enjoy this but adults may find it unbelievable and slightly annoying. Still, the message is a powerful one with the main theme being the importance of failure in life. If every day of your life was a perfect day then would you truly appreciate it?
My five-year-old nephew gets really upset when he doesn’t win at a game so we’re trying to teach him losing is okay once you never give up and keep trying to do better. So Luck may not be as fleshed out as some other animated films and the animation may not be up to Pixar standards, but it’s the kind of movie I think little kids will thoroughly enjoy and its message is one worth hearing, no matter how young or old you are.
Score: 6 out of 10
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Sommerleigh of the House Pollonais. First of Her Name. Sushi Lover, Queen of Horror Movies, Comic Books and Binge Watching Netflix. Mother of two beautiful black cats named Vader and Kylo. I think eating Popcorn at the movies should be mandatory, PS4 makes the best games ever, and I’ll be talking about movies until the zombie apocalypse comes.
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