Skydance Animation is one of the newest animation studios on the block. Having been formed recently, it gained some controversy after hiring the recently ousted John Lasseter as its Head of Animation due to his sexual misconduct allegations at Pixar. This move even prompted actress Emma Thompson dropping out of the film, Luck.
Controversy aside, I finally saw Luck and what did I think of it? Read on to find out!
(Caution, there will be mild spoilers!)
Directed by Peggy Holmes, Luck is about a young orphan, Sam, voiced by Eva Noblezada. Well, she’s not very young; she’s legally an adult now and has moved out of the orphanage due to the fact. However she seems to be the unluckiest person in the world! Anything that can go wrong for her seems to go wrong for her. They might as well have called her Murphy!
One day, she sees a black cat who’s dropped a penny. She picks up the penny and realizes that the penny is lucky as her whole life changes for the better with it in her possession. She decides she wants to give the penny to a young girl at the orphanage so that it can help her get adopted. However she loses the penny down the toilet.
Disappointed, she sees the cat again and realizes that he can talk! The cat, Bob, voiced by Simon Pegg, is from the Land of Luck, a place that determines how luck is divided up in the human world. Leprechauns, unicorns, and root monsters make up the workforce in the Land of Luck. The CEO is a dragon named Babe, voiced by Jane Fonda.
Sam and Bob (reluctantly) decide to team up to find the penny again before more damage can be caused. But as you can imagine…more damage is caused.
Without giving away too many spoilers, that’s pretty much the plot of Luck. It’s a very serviceable film. It’s not really bad; it’s just very…fine, at best. Nothing is exciting about it; nothing is horrible about it. It just…is.
The animation is nice to look at, but nothing spectacular. But, the voice acting was really great! I was especially pleasantly surprised to hear former Pixar mainstay, John Ratzenberger, voice one of the characters.
Plotwise, a lot of it is confusing. There’s a whole lore about cats in this land that confused me as well as a plot point revolving a “Lucky Stone” being important despite probably mentioned only once in the entire film! The worldbuilding was very nice, but all the connecting pieces to tie the world in with the plot seemed very loose.
The best thing about the film was its message: There is a lot of wisdom in having bad things happen rather than just having things you deem good happen all the time. Things we deem bad may actually deep down be good for us. I liked hearing that as I feel most messages nowadays are about “just do what you want and hang the consequences”. I felt this was a very mature message.
Overall, this wasn’t a bad first film from a studio. But it’s no The Lego Movie or Ron’s Gone Wrong. You’re not missing anything by skipping it, but you also won’t hate yourself for seeing it.
The Animation Commendation 