Luck – Film Review

Few animated movies are as fun, wholesome, cute, charming, hilarious, and surprisingly green as Peggy Holmes‘ Luck, a movie that I didn’t expect a whole lot from but ended up being one of my favorite animated projects of the year so far. It’s a lovely mixture of everything you’d want in a kids’ movie and so much more.

Screenwriter Kiel Murray doesn’t add an original idea every single turn in this movie, and that’s perfectly okay. This movie has been getting a lot of negative attention for not being a game-changing piece of animation, but I’ll tell you – this movie felt quite grandiose and humongous to me. One of my favorite animated movies? Probably.

Whenever Murray wants to do something bold and unexpected in Luck, he swings and he connects every single time. There’s some stuff in the third act of the film in particular that took me by complete surprise, including one heck of an emotional ending that is sure to bring many adults to tears. Can you see the ending come a mile away? Sure. But it’s still so much fun to see with your own two eyes.

This is also one of the most beautifully animated movies I’ve seen in quite a long time. It was made by Skydance Animation, and would you know it? It’s actually their first ever feature film which is outstandingly impressive. Every single frame of this film had me thinking it was a Pixar film only to find out that it was made by a newly formed studio.

If Luck is their debut, then words cannot even begin to describe just how excited I am to see what kind of amazing stuff they do next. Their team is obviously highly talented and incredibly dedicated to their craft, and they’re definitely going to be a studio that you’ll see and hear from quite a bit more down the road.

It’s also a film with some great voice performances scattered throughout as well, namely from Eva Noblezada as Sam Greenfield, who is essentially the unluckiest girl in the entire world. Her relationship with Bob, a Scottish black cat who does his best to help Sam on her mission, is extremely sweet and touching. Simon Pegg serves as the voice of Bob, and you can never go wrong with more Pegg.

Plus the film manages to say some surprisingly deep things while also teaching young children valuable life lessons as well, which is what some of the best Pixar movies do. Does this hit as hard as a Pixar movie? No, but close. Luck is a wonderfully sweet, inspiring, funny, and emotional animated adventure brought to life stunningly by director Peggy Holmes.