Harmless and inventive, Peggy Holmes’ Luck is full of narrative potential, but the plot machinations get too complex and overly explanatory. While perfectly fine, the film lacks any spark.

Eva Noblezada lends her voice to the lead character of Sam Greenfield, the unluckiest person in the world. Following her aging-out of a girl’s orphanage, she discovers a lucky penny left on the ground after feeding a cat named Bob (Simon Pegg). Her luck suddenly changes and Sam strives to give the penny to her young friend Hazel in order to find a forever home.

Sam unfortunately loses the penny and discovers Bob ability to talk. She follows Bob into the Land of Luck where she discovers the good luck and back luck being created and distributed throughout the world. She attempts to get another lucky penny and return home to Hazel.

The Land of Luck is vibrant and complicated. While it all looks really cool, the mechanics of how it all works is far too intricate to explain. Aspects of the Land of Luck continually get updated and added on for the first hour of the film. Bob is more of an exposition dump than a character. Whenever Sam doesn’t understand something, he launches into a long-winded explanation for how the world works.

Sam’s bad luck is the engine that makes the story go, but there is no explanation for why she has perpetually bad luck. The story goes to great lengths to explain every single thing but leaves out one of the largest pieces of the puzzle.

Noblezada does her best to make Sam as likeable as possible. The rubbery animation doesn’t do her any favors, but she puts in a solid effort. Pegg and Bob as a character never broach anything more than surface-level. His character isn’t all that interesting or endearing. Jane Fonda shows up as a white-collar dragon and does fine work, while Flula Borg gets the biggest laughs as a lovesick unicorn.

The messaging of the film is sweet, but it so desperately wanted to be something deeper. I don’t know if it was rushed or if it is all an example of a good idea executed poorly.

Kids will like it, parents will tolerate it. Luck is an unmemorable and lackluster start to the animation branch at AppleTV+. At least there are no villains.

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Luck will be streaming on August 5th on AppleTV+
Score: 2.5/5.0

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