Worth: $11.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Eva Noblezada, Simon Pegg, Adelynn Spoon, Whoopi Goldberg, Jane Fonda, Flula Borg, Lil Rel Howery (voices)
Intro:
... somewhere between the lovechild of Monsters Inc (2001) and Inside Out (2015) only without the required emotional crescendo.
In Skydance Animation’s inoffensive family adventure, luck be no lady tonight.
Having lived eighteen years living in foster care without being adopted, the spirited Sam (voiced by Eva Noblezada) ventures out on her own for the first time in her life. Unfortunately for Sam, things never quite work out for her, with disaster and dismay sticking to her like jam on toast. (The film ladles so much misfortune on her that it is a surprise that screenwriter Kiel Murray didn’t just name her Murphy McClutz.) It is when the hapless Sam comes into temporary possession of a lucky penny, one belonging to an otherworldly jet-black cat named Bob (Simon Pegg holding down a Scottish brood), does her fortune begin to shift.
Wanting to extend this good luck to her young friend Hazel (Adelynn Spoon), allowing her to nab a “Forever Family”, Sam travels via a magical portal to the Land of Luck. It is in this fantastical metropolis, sitting somewhere between Asgard and a big-tech head office in appearance, where Sam must overcome her ill-fatedness.
Luck follows a popular trend in animated films in its absence of a maniacal villain; leaning hard into its tale of introspection and self-actualisation. It is to its detriment that the Land of Luck doesn’t compensate for this in the hijinks department, with director Peggy Holmes (known for her direct-to-video Disney features) creating a rather static world that ought to be alive and sprawling. It is a feat that not even the fine support voice work of Whoopi Goldberg, Jane Fonda, Flula Borg and Lil Rel Howery can overcome.
While not needing to speak the language of Disney, Luck feels like the first draft of a Pixar screenplay, existing somewhere between the lovechild of Monsters Inc (2001) and Inside Out (2015), only without the required emotional crescendo.
