By: Andrew Wing

Luck is a 2022 computer-animated fantasy comedy film directed by Peggy Holmes (Secret of the Wings, The Pirate Fairy) and written by Kiel Murray who co-wrote the story with Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger (best known for writing the Kung Fu Panda movies), based on an original concept by Rebeca Carrasco, Juan De Dios, and Julián Romero. Produced by Skydance Animation, the film features the voices of Eva Noblezada (recently starred in Easter Sunday - see Ted’s full review here), Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Mission: Impossible franchise), Jane Fonda (Klute, Grace and Frankie), Whoopi Goldberg (Ghost, Sister Act), Flula Borg (Pitch Perfect 2, The Suicide Squad), Lil Rel Howery (Get Out, Free Guy), Colin O'Donoghue (Once Upon a Time, The Rite), and John Ratzenberger (voiced Hamm in the Toy Story franchise).

The film follows the unluckiest person in the world, Sam Greenfield (Noblezada), who suddenly finds herself in the never-before-seen Land of Luck. There she must unite with the magical creatures to turn her luck around.

Luck premiered in Madrid on August 2, 2022, and was released on Apple TV+ and in select theaters in the United States on August 5, 2022.

THE GOOD

The busy summer of animated movies continues! First, there was Lightyear (see our full review here), then Netflix’s The Sea Beast which I recently reviewed (see my full review here), and also Warner Bros. Pictures’ DC League of Super-Pets which Ted recently reviewed (see his full review here). That said, Luck sort of came out of nowhere. But nevertheless, after watching the trailer I was intrigued, and the fact that it was Skydance Animation’s first feature film and also was going to premiere on Apple TV+, I was excited to check it out! So was this a promising start for Skydance Animation? Keep reading to find out!

I’m going to make you wait for a little bit before I answer that question, but just to get the ball rolling on the review, I need to say that all of the voice acting here was solid. First with Eva Noblezada, the young actress who voiced the main character, Sam Greenfield. Now I mentioned Noblezada’s performance in Easter Sunday, a movie that was quite bad if you ask me. But despite that, I liked her in that and I really liked what we got from her in this. She’s a young actress who hasn’t done much, but after this performance, I think she will be getting a ton of calls and I think this won’t be her last voice acting job because she really brought that character to life for me.

Aside from her though, there were a lot of other voice performances that I thought were really good. Simon Pegg voiced the black cat, Bob, who had a brilliant Scottish accent. I might be biased because I love Pegg in everything he does. Whether he’s arguing with Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible - Fallout or killing zombies in Shaun of the Dead, I’m 100% on board. I also enjoyed the legendary Jane Fonda’s voice performance as the female dragon who serves as CEO of the Land of Luck, Flula Borg cracked me up as he always does with his German accent, and the iconic John Ratzenberger stole the show in the end as he quite often does in animated movies as he voiced Rootie, a root monster who runs a tiki bar.

Aside from the voice acting, there really wasn’t much about Luck that I was over the moon about, unfortunately. However, I did like the animation style of the real world that we got to see a lot of in the first third of the film. The animation style of the Land of Luck was rather uninspiring to me, but I still think that Skydance Animation has the right animators in place there to give us some visually stunning films in the years to come. They just have to learn from this and they’ll be just fine.

THE BAD

Alright, now is the time for me to not be so nice. First, I just got to say that it is extremely hard to critique animated films and I really do love the majority of them, but there was just something missing with Luck. I already addressed the lackluster worldbuilding that I really think hurt the movie overall, but what was worse than that was the subpar storytelling that we got. The premise to this is super interesting, and I just think that Skydance didn’t select the right people for this one unfortunately.

Back to the worldbuilding element though, it just needed to be better. I mean look at a film like Inside Out, a film I consider to be one of the best Pixar films ever released and honestly one of the best animated movies of all time. The worldbuilding inside the main character Riley’s mind in that movie absolutely took that film to another level, and I was hoping for something similar with Luck but it just never came. It was just a tough watch because a lot of the movie just reminded me of better animated movies and the sluggish pacing of the film didn’t do itself any favors.

THE VERDICT

Despite some great voice acting from the entire cast, Luck is an uninspiring start from Skydance Animation due to a myriad of reasons, all of which just made me want to watch better animated movies.

I still have faith in Skydance Animation because they did some things right here, but next time they just need to focus less on getting huge name actors to voice their characters, and more on storytelling and worldbuilding because that is what people want out of an animated kids movie in my humble opinion.