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Key Information

• Director: Peggy Holmes
• Animation Studios: Skydance Animation and Skydance Animation Madrid
• Country of Origin: United States of America, Spain
• Rating: PG
• Release Date: 5 August 2022 (On Apple TV+)
• Trailer: Click here

Introduction

Yo-ho, fellow adventurers! Blaziker here and ready to set off for another adventure! With so many travels for the past few days, I think it’s time that we set course, not with a plan, but with lady luck because today, we are heading to the Land of Luck for Skydance Animation’s first animated feature “Luck”.

Directed by long-time Disney choreographer Peggy Holmes and produced by… disgraced former Pixar executive producer John Lasseter, it starts Eva Nobelzada as Sam, a lady who seems to suffer from almost every bad instance of bad luck. One day, she discovered a lucky penny from a cat (voiced by Simon Pegg) and suddenly, she started to experience instances of good luck but when she lost it and told the cat about it; he bemoans that loss and heads out to his home in the Land of Luck, not realising Sam had followed him to the Land as she found herself in the middle of the old-age conflict between good and back luck.

With so many controversies surrounding Lasseter and the recent, problematic Hollywood Reporter article highlighting issues faced by some Skydance Animation crew members when working with him, will Luck be the fresh start for Lasseter, or will he once again ruin another animated movie?

Story and Characters

With many animated movies from across the world, it is difficult to craft an original animated movie with elements not seen elsewhere, especially for mainstream animated movies with similar plot structures and storylines. Luck is no exception, given that we had seen conflict-driven plots in animated movies where is a good side (the Land of Luck) and the bad (the Land of Bad Luck). However, a big issue regarding me is that the story focuses way too much on the Land of Luck. There is a lack of narrative on the Land of Bad Luck and why bad luck is perceived to be terrible. There is also the issue of Luck’s world-building where, in a similar case to Wonder Park that was also animated by the same studio, lacks in substance due to the over-focus on the Land of Luck.

However, the bigger issue has to be the sudden twist villain that happened for only around 3 to 5 minutes. We had seen twist villains gain popularity since around the late 2010s. We got an overabundance of twist villains and not enough conventional villains. Worse still, a good amount of them are not great because of poor writing, and with Luck, it may be one of the most head-scratching twist villains of recent memory.

Still, the idea that the concept of luck is something of a necessary evil is a thought-provoking idea that shows that sometimes, it is impossible to fight against fate, and instead should go with the flow and see where the road takes us. I know this was something Bullet Train, a recent movie that also came out but with better reception, had proven, nevertheless it is a well-explored plot line regardless.

As for characters, I felt that Sam, an orphan with her fair share of bad luck moments, maybe a one-note protagonist who I feel the writers did not develop her enough, but Nobelzada’s voice acting is not too bad. Pegg returned to voice act as Jack, the lucky bad cat from the Land of Luck, did a better performance than his voice acting as Buck in Ice Age: The Adventures of Buck Wild (which I had yet to watch in full this year) and was hilarious and wide, especially when interacting with Sam.

However, I had an issue with Jane Fonda’s Dragon, but I will not disclose the reasons, given the reason is a spoiler moment, but I will disclose that her background and characterisation made little sense in the movie. I will not, however, disclose on the other supporting cast because of their lack of development, although the overall voice acting work is better than expected.

Honestly, given that Lasseter took charge of the movie, the writing decisions made in the movie should surprise no one who knew about his actions back at Pixar. If led by a more competent producer who only steps in when needed, Luck would not have this much writing and characterisation issues.

Animation

Speaking about the animation, Skydance Animation and their Spanish counterpart, Skydance Animation Madrid (SAM) worked on the animation. However, long-time animation fans would recognise the second studio as Ilion Animation Studios, a Madrid-based studio that had worked on previous animated movies such as Planet 51 and Wonder Park. Speaking of Wonder Park, it shares similar animation styles with Luck, and coincidentally share similarities.

In addition, the background design is similar to Wonder Park’s, with the grandiose backgrounds, regular human designs and a wide range of non-human designs. However, the main difference between the animation styles of Wonder Park and Luck is that while Wonder Park makes a wide spectrum of colours to fully immerse moviegoers into Wonderland, the Land of Luck is noticeably less bright, with some usage of industrial colours in the interior that contrasts the lucky green of its exterior, the usage of garish purple for the In-Between and the fire that lightens the darkness in Bad Luck. I just wish the team at Skydance Animation and its Spanish counterpart uses brighter colouring to make the backgrounds less dull.

As for character designs and animation, one big issue I have is the facial expressions, especially on Sam. Sam’s facial expressions could not have looked this dull, given Luck had a budget of US$140 million. Given this big of a budget, I suspect not much went into the animation, because on a technical scale, the character designs do not look impressive, and Skydance Animation Madrid tried to make them look cartoony to go around that budget (which they did in Planet 51).

Still, at least the animation quality, just like with Wonder Park, is fine and the movements are not that stiff, but considering the large budget, I expect the animation to be top-notch and around the scale of DreamWorks’ and Illumination Entertainment’s recent animated movies. Sadly, just like with SAM’s previous animated movies of Planet 51 and Wonder Park, while there were some bright sparks with the animation, Luck’s animation does not look impressive compared to other animated movies on similar budgets.

Special Sauce

While there are not much unique elements about Luck, I will try to point out some points worth looking at:

• Birth of a new studio: In a direct reference to Jeangu Macrooy’s song “Birth of a New Age”, this is the debut feature for Skydance Animation, and if you ask me, it is worth seeing Luck for this reason alone, although there is also another reason to watch it…
• #LoseLasseter: Former disgraced Pixar executive John Lasseter, who left Pixar during the middle of the 2010s due to sexual allegations, is in charge of not just this movie, but also Skydance Animation’s next movie “Spellbound”. Let us hope the same shenanigans will not happen with that movie, but given Lasseter’s actions (if you ignore that Hollywood Reporter that tried to ‘praise’ him but still covered poor practices from him during the production of Luck)…

Conclusion

Making an animated movie is a laborious process that takes years to get it right, and in some of these projects, animated movies can go off the rails and either produce bad results or being scrapped through no fault of their own, which was what we are seeing in the cancellation of animated movies and shows recently. However, I argue Skydance Animation Madrid might have the worst luck among most animation studios out there. Not only do their projects got ruined through mostly no fault of their own, but they had to deal with the production issues surrounding most of their projects.

Luck is a middling, if not fine, animated movie debut for Skydance Animation. It had issues with some of the plot holes and an uninspired, overbearing world-building and some unmemorable characters. The animation, while not the most vibrant and exciting, looks fine for theatrical animation standards and the “special” elements do not feel special at all. It most likely came down to Lasseter, who might have a role in meddling with another animation project, but even if that is not the case, it feels like Lasseter is out of luck with this flick.

Thank you so much for journeying with me on another animation adventure. Well, time to recharge for the rest of the summer, but up next, we will be looking at more animated movies that came out during the rest of the summer. I will see you on the next animation adventure and until then, k thanks bye!

Rating

• Story and characters: 2/5
• Animation: 3/5
• Special sauce: 2.5/5
• Overall score: 7.5/15

Rating: Ok