Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
The surging streamer Apple TV+ has high hopes for Luck, the first animated film in their collaboration with Pixar founder John Lasseter – who left the company under a cloud of controversy – and his new studio Skydance Animation. Whatever baggage Lasseter brings, he also managed to bring plenty of his former employer’s charm and creativity with him as well. Luck could easily pass for a Pixar movie in heart and humor. But does it deliver in full on the promise of its pedigree?
LUCK: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Sam Greenfield (voice of Eva Noblezada) is about as unlucky as they come. It seems like nothing can go right for this 18-year-old girl, and Luck loves getting in some visual jabs at her expense. Sam might have matured out of the foster system, but her heart still remains there with the sweet young Hazel (voice of Adelynn Spoon). She wants nothing more than to transfer whatever small bit of luck she might have to help Hazel find her forever family, but she gets a little more than she bargained for after picking up a “lucky” penny that opens up a portal to a world above our human one. Here, the forces of good and bad luck operate under a series of intricate procedures that ingeniously map to our human experiences of the phenomenon. Together with black cat Bob (voice of Simon Pegg), Sam must adventure her way through the many layers of this unfamiliar world in order to secure some luck for Hazel’s adoption.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The entire film feels predicated on bottling up that Pixar magic, so if you find yourself with a bit of déjà vu … that’s very much by design. For example, the emotional score recalls Up and the adventure to rescue a child in need of help gives off strong Finding Nemo vibes. But more than anything, Luck feels incredibly indebted to the ingenuity and imagination of Pixar’s Inside Out. I reckon this movie would not even be possible had Pete Docter’s groundbreaking work not shown that a family film could take concepts as abstract as “emotions” and creatively conceptualize them in a way that made sense to young viewers. All the quippy, clever ways in which the movie makes luck into tangible things owe a huge debt to Inside Out.
Performance Worth Watching: The quick-witted Simon Pegg, long the MVP and most reliable laugh-getter in franchises ranging from Star Trek to Mission: Impossible is really on his A-game in Luck. He understands the assignment, as it were, dialing up the Scottish accent to an 11 and being down for all the movie’s fun. Beyond serving as a practical guide to navigating the unfamiliar realms explored in Luck, Pegg serves as a crucial emotional anchor for the film.
Memorable Dialogue: Especially as Luck nears its conclusion, it’s got many a good quotable about the value of good and bad luck. Those lines hit the sweet spot of being relevant and applicable without feeling like something you’d see on a motivational poster in a middle-school classroom. “It’s one of the benefits of bad luck,” says old Pixar stalwart voice talent John Ratzenberger’s Rootie, “it teaches you to pivot.” The film offers no shortage of helpful aphorisms that can train young viewers to reframe what feels like misfortune and cosmic punishment.
Sex and Skin: This is about as squeaky-clean and family-friendly as they come so better luck next time if that’s the kind of thing you’re looking for.
Our Take: It becomes clear pretty early in Luck that this is imitation Pixar, not the real McCoy. It probably won’t make you cry, for example, but you’d probably have to be stone-hearted not to get a little misty-eyed here. But that distinction is probably lost on younger viewers – the film’s target audience – and is only notable for the generation that grew up on those original computer-animated classics. While the imaginative worlds conjured by the film can get a little too clever and involved for their own good, it’s at least some comfort to kick back with something that actually respects its viewers with such thoughtfulness. There’s enough of a silly, sincere throughline in Luck to keep connected even through some of the duller plot mechanics and contrivances. Even if there’s nothing all too eye-popping here, at least there’s very little to trigger eye-rolls.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Luck is family fun done right, even if it skews towards the lower end of the age spectrum in its appeal. In both concept and execution, it’s original enough to make some of its more predictable developments feel fresher than they are. And any movie that can help us see the world in a different way, understanding good and bad luck are often what we make of them, provides a valuable lesson for viewers of any age.
Marshall Shaffer is a New York-based freelance film journalist. In addition to Decider, his work has also appeared on Slashfilm, Slant, Little White Lies and many other outlets. Some day soon, everyone will realize how right he is about Spring Breakers.
