Luck lacks the Pixar spark—and a lot more
The first film from John Lasseter's Skydance Animation simply shrugs at any sincere interaction with its fantastical setting
Film Reviews Pixar
Hugely innovative on both a technological and narrative level, Pixar helped advance the medium of animation, and destroy once and for all the notion that mainstream animated films couldn’t be complex and ambitious without alienating or excluding their (usual) core family demographic. John Lasseter, as the director of Toy Story and Chief Creative Officer of Pixar, was at the forefront of this sea-change.
It’s especially perplexing, then, that Luck, the shockingly dismal debut feature from the new, Lasseter-run Skydance Animation, arrives with such a thud. The movie’s slipshod reasoning and grating rhythms suggest strongly that Lasseter’s ignominious professional defenestration (he was driven from his perch in 2017-18 amidst allegations of sexual misconduct) has impacted his storytelling judgment, the expertise and skill level of people who wish to work with him, or both.
Aging out of the group house she’s long called home, 18-year-old orphan Sam (Eva Noblezada) gets her first apartment and a job. Gifted a magic penny which for several hours reverses her seemingly perpetual haplessness, Sam makes plans to give it to young friend and fellow orphan Hazel in advance of the latter’s meeting with a potential adoptive family—only to lose the coin at the last minute.
When Sam again crosses paths with the Scottish black cat, Bob (Simon Pegg), who she believes to be a harbinger of luck, he flees. Sam gives chase, and slips back to his home, an alternate dimension called the “Land of Luck” where fortune both good and bad is manufactured, and then funneled to Earth. The happy, positive side is populated with leprechauns and bunnies—though overseen for some reason by a 40-foot dragon named Babe (Jane Fonda). There’s a negative side, too, as well as an “In Between” space, appropriately sandwiched in the midst of these two lands.
Sam and Bob, with the assistance of the latter’s leprechaun friend Gerry (Colin O’Donoghue), try to evade Captain (Whoopi Goldberg), the Land of Luck’s stern security head, and lay hands on a lucky penny they can then utilize to help them both.
To say that Luck struggles with nonverbal storytelling is a massive understatement. The screenplay, by Kiel Murray (from story co-credited alongside Glenn Berger and Jonathan Aibel) is somewhat paradoxically lazy and incredibly overwritten. Many details seem odd (leprechauns just exist to polish pennies), perhaps the result of a push-and-pull development, and the script overall is full of a number of holes that never get spackled up. One of the most notable examples of this is a store manager, Marv (Lil Rel Howery), who greets Sam on her first day of work by saying, apropos of nothing, “You may be the best decision I ever made!”
For longtime principled opponents of the Cars and spinoff Planes franchises, in which there are many vexing questions about those worlds, as well as an entire class of vehicles which exist in servitude, Luck also likely presents one major gear-grinding oddity: what is the genesis of this universe, and why do its inhabitants all exist to provide fortune to humans which very few of them ever meet? Luck simply shrugs at any sincere interaction with its setting.
Most wearyingly, though, Luck is weighed down by a story that is incredibly task-oriented. In the absence of any genuinely well-crafted world-building, with some sense of wonderment and whimsy that might capture and hold the imagination of a child (or even adult), there is instead talking—so much talking. One loses track of the number of monologues listing out the series of tasks in a particular sub-quest, or explaining the existence of a “luck randomizer,” or how crystals are smashed into dust before being ferried off.
It’s one thing to repeatedly funnel a lot of exposition or functional plotting through a single character; while still suboptimal overall, this tack in its most artful rendering can be absorbed into that character’s personality. It’s the sign of a deeper problem, though, when multiple characters are constantly explaining the scope of its world, relationships between its inhabitants, and almost every single interaction.
The result is a movie that feels like a very colorful, moving instruction manual, in which things… just happen. Sometimes this means there are cute bits of physical comedy, as with Bob’s attempted escape from Sam, in which he walks across a series of opening umbrellas. Most times, though, scenes grind to a halt for an indulged idea (a line dance with bunnies!) that reads as nothing more than a narrative escape chute.
Director Peggy Holmes took over for Kung Fu Panda 3 co-director Alessandro Carloni (who departed over creative differences) either during production or just before the bulk of principle animation took place, depending on what account one chooses to believe. This detail is felt in the film’s lack of clarified stewardship, and, quite frankly, effort. Luck’s visual design is low-key pleasant, but not necessarily ambitious; it leans into generically appealing, eye-batting character design, and doesn’t build out backgrounds in exacting detail.
Will young kids even notice this? Yes, but not in ways they can articulate—which is a blessing, actually, because after Luck, the best fortune one may hope for is a bit of prolonged silence.
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I guess it just didn’t hug you the right way.
Look, I know we give the A.V. Club a lot of shit these days, so I figured a bit of praise is in order. This is an amazing phrase and bonus points for using my favorite word:
ignominious professional defenestration
Also, the three-paragraph summary of the story gives a strong sense of how bafflingly complicated and arbitrary the worldbuilding and plot apparently are, and so why characters would need to be constantly explaining what the hell is going on.
My jaw actually dropped. I was like, “WHOA!! G/O Media allowed a memorable turn of phrase to show up in an article?!”
I like to think that it literally happened that way because that’s the most cartoony way to fire someone.
Being an animator, I naturally assume that Lasseter crashed noisily through the window, bounced off an awning, and landed in a dumpster. Then hopped up, dusted himself off, and strolled whistling across the street to Skydance.
Please tell me he had a banana peel stuck to his jacket as a result of this misadventure.
Well, a trap door really doesn’t count as defenestration.
pretty weird that “professional” is your favorite word, but you do you
Yeah, that was a fairly delightful turn of phrase.
Lassiter’s exit went like this, actually….
One thing I think nu-A.V. Club deserves credit for is that one thing some people predicted they’d do that they haven’t done is do only Hollywood suck-up positive reviews(“You’re in luck if you get to see Luck. It’s this week’s top Pix…..ar!).
Mmm, I do feel like their reviews have gotten substantially more positive in the last few months, but that only brings them to a sort of normal “some good, some bad” level of criticism, rather than their historical “most movies are disappointing, the rest are okay” standpoint.
Did it happen in Prague though?
I guess we can say Joh Lesseter wasn’t the sole reason Pixar was great now.
Pixar’s recent output has been somewhat lacking too, though… Coco was the most recent one from them that I would consider to be memorable. Even Turning Red was just okay.
And he was Executive Producer on Coco. The regular Disney movies released under his watch were a step up from the ones that had come recently before him too.I don’t think most people thought he was solely responsible, but he was in charge of one of the most successful studios that had a very impressive string of critical and box office hits. Even if it’s just hiring the right people to make the movies, I think he earned credit for a good deal of that success.
I do think his success was largely down to his collaborators, and I believe it was reported that some avoided Skydance because of Lasseter. That sort of leaves you with who it leaves you with. Emma Thompson dropped out of this publicly, but I’m sure there were others of less note who also wanted nothing to do with Lasseter.
It’s also worth noting Skydance is actually a Madrid-based animation company called Ilion Animation Studios that rebranded itself after partnering with Skydance Media. Lassetter is the head of the American side (called Skydance Animation, technically a separate company) but doesn’t have control of the Madrid studio. Their previous films were Planet 51, Wonder Park, and a Spanish film called Mortadelo and Filemon: Mission Implausible. I hadn’t heard of either of the previous two and apparently they’re dreadful. I think some people have this image of Lasseter creating a new studio from the ground up, infusing that classic Pixar spark into a plucky upstart free from the Mouse’s shackles. It’s not that at all. He’s the COO of the American division of a third-rate Spanish CGI house whose films are maybe only a couple steps above those Brazilian Pixar knockoffs like “Ratatooing” or whatever.
Wonder Park had its moments.I agree that while John Lasseter may be hoping for that narrative, it isn’t wholly the case. That said, I suspect the collaborators he’s bringing to the table for the productions that he is heading up aren’t the same as they were back at Pixar. I have seen some things about Brad Bird working on something for Skydance, but that’s about it. I suspect the Madrid side must be holding its breath a little bit here hoping for Pixar magic.
I thought Soul had good moments.
I thought Turning Red was an absolute treat, but maybe it’s because I saw it with streaming-colored glasses on (glasses that are colored in a way that make you expect the worst straight-to-Netflix bullshit, so you’re pleasantly surprised when it’s good).
Clearly it was all the hugging he is now forbidden from doing that made it great!
The next John Lasseter movie:
‘Meet the Cuddlebug – a furry, friendly, Hawaiian shirt-wearing creature who loves nothing more than to spread positivity through physical contact! Each time one of Huggsy Energy Inc.’s employees receive a hug, a shoulder massage, or a reassuring pat on the ass from the Cuddlebug, it generates enough positive energy to power the entire Western Hemisphere for over an hour, and makes Huggsy Energy employees the happiest workers in all the world. But THEN a new President is elected who wants to make hugging illegal!’
Actually… I think I prefer this animation style.
Those early years of traditional cel-animated shows using CGI were so rough. The YT poster’s pfp reminded me that Spongebob had some awful examples too. I don’t remember the context of the episode but there was one where he wouldn’t let go of someone’s car (Ms. Puff’s maybe?) and was dragged all over the place. In some scenes, they used this really awful CGI scaling of the background that looked so out of place, even back in the early 2000s. Even as a kid it made me cringe. They used it a bunch but that was the worst example I remember.
my eyes glazed over reading the plot description. it sounds so complicated and half baked.
Sounds more like a game design pitch than a movie.
truly the first bit read like an establishing cinematic before a tutorial level.
It sounds like a couple Americans read “Chinese culture for dummies” and tried to write a movie that will play well over there but also play in the states just as well and they failed
I saw the trailer in front of Thor and it was… just kind of odd. It felt like a weak concept, the sort of thing you would expect from a C-tier animation studio. I legitimately thought to myself “Well I guess we don’t have to worry about Lasseter staging a comeback anytime soon.”
Did I see it, is a question I’m asking, because I honestly don’t remember any of the trailers in front of Thor. I just kind of blacked out everything from that experience.
I was confused by this review thinking I’d seen the trailer before Thor, but then remembered there was a farmer or something and it seemed very off-Broadway Suessian. I think it was this movie:
very funny that after lightyear flopped disney’s next big release is another space movie with some other ‘first ever’ gay scene.
Yeah, I saw the trailer during Friday Night Baseball on Apple+, and it just looked so generic. There was nothing particularly memorable about the character designs and the whole thing looked like it came from a knockoff studio that would put things like “Ice Era” on Netflix.
Yep. Like Pixar movies are complicated but for the most part can be summed up in a sentence or two.Finding Nemo: Fish Dad has wife and children murdered and then becomes an overbearing father and is further traumatized by witnessing his only son be kidnapped. Must rescue son with the help of another fish who has long term memory loss. Hilarity ensures.
monsters go to university.
The trailer was okay until we go that weird place.
I thought “Did Christopher Nolan’s brother fucking write this script?”
Well, Pixar movies lost the Pixar spark long before Lasseter was canned…
“When Sam again crosses paths with the Scottish black cat”
You have to have previously mentioned the cat to say “again.” Hire good writers.
The telltale sign of a bad Pixar ripoff is that they always use their “high concepts” not to explore various intriguing ideas but just to go “hey what if this intangible thing had its own bureaucracy”
I mean, that’s really what all the jokes about “Pixar movie: what if (x) had feelings?” amount to, isn’t it?
If you start by figuring out what “(x) has feelings” means, then it’s easy to give (x) motivations based on those feelings. And once you know what motivates your main character(s), that’s the root of your story. You can build around it as much or as little as you need to.
Conversely, if you start with “what if (x) was a place?” you don’t have a story, you don’t have a focus, and you’re a couple layers removed from even figuring it out. You’ve got a lot of “how would that work?” or “what would it look like?” or “what kind of social structures would exist there?” before you can even get to “hey, uh, what kinds of characters might you find there? What are THOSE guys up to?” It’s very hard to answer that in a way that feels organic, and not dictated by the mechanics you’ve just spent so much time and thought building.
Of course, in this case, it sounds like they half-assed the mechanics too.
What if x but with paperwork
I used to fucking love this concept and now it’s happening so often I’m super, super sick of it. It made me enjoy Soul less. (snort)
If I see one more movie or TV show where the Afterlife is portrayed as a bureaucracy, I’m gonna scream.
What if X was a bureaucracy needs to end.
And most maddening is that it all steals from A Matter of Life and Death, while completely misunderstanding the point of the use of bureaucracy in that film, which was to contrast the chaos of WWII being fought on earth. To audiences in 1946 who have endured decades of war, depression and turmoil, the prospect of an afterlife of normalcy, of clocks and decks and files, was very appealing idea.Now, the bureaucratic portrayal of the afterlife is just a lazy and cheap device against which filmmakers can contrast the beauty of life, without, you know, having to actually make the case for why one would choose life over afterlife.
Not only that, but Afterlife bureaucracies frequently feature characters who don’t understand fundamental things about life or the human experience. You’re telling me after millennia of processing souls, angels and devils are no closer to understanding humans?? You guys really haven’t figured this shit out yet?
This is why Death from Sandman is still my all-time favorite; as the one who takes life, she appreciates how precious it is. I certainly don’t like the idea of waiting rooms or being processed by bored office workers when I die. Send me back to Earth if that’s what’s waiting for me!
It’s weird, but I thought the Celestial Bureaucracy was the most entertaining part of “The Good Place.”
I think the idea about celestial bureaucracies not “understanding” is a commentary on how real life ones work. If you work in one of those you can’t really understand or care about the consequences of your job or you’d go insane. Most of the job of a bureaucrat is figuring out reasons to deny requests. Even if that can be a matter of life or death to the requester. Sure, sometimes they can bend the rules to help somebody, but if they do that often enough, they get fired for wasting resources.
Although considering the side in WWII that was obsessed with decks and files to the degree that war crimes trials could just read the files to know what was done and who ordered it, I’m not sure such bureaucracy was all that comforting.
Powell and Pressburger!
Have I got a Jack Chick tract for you to read!
Right with you. After all we know it’s just gonna be a big orgy.
Off topic: did you really cost $200 million?
The description in the article did make me think “So, kinda like Monsters Inc but much, much, much worse?”
Thank you! “Magical office workers” is my least favorite trope. I hate when writers take all these cool fantastical elements which are designed to contrast and escape the mundanity of real life, and the best they can think to do with them is “Uuuuuuuhhh what if like, we did The Office, but with, like, uhhhh unicorns.” What you almost always get is just a generic office setting with magical window-dressing, AND a sense that the writer is all the way up his own ass because he thinks he’s just SO clever for coming up with this. Seriously, every movie, book or show that does this always acts like it’s the FIRST story to ever do this. They’re always written as though the audience is going to be hugely impressed just by the idea. It’s so tiresome.
I think the only show to ever do this trope well is The Good Place, where (spoilers for one of the best sitcoms ever made) the same episode where you discover there’s a magic bureaucracy behind the afterlife is also the same one where you discover everyone is actually in Hell, and from them on it becomes about the characters trying to tear the whole system down.
See, I actually love a good celestial bureaucracy – it’s actually one of my favorite tropes. But the key is that, by taking something fantastical and grounding it in reality, it has to say something about both that fantasy and the reality it’s grounded in. This doesn’t seem to do either.
I liked the one in The Good Place.
Article from the Guardian about just this: All work and no play: why the cartoon world needs to stop copying the corporate | Film | The Guardian(Look for it on their site if that link doesn’t work.)
It’s quite surprising that they’re openly advertising Lasseter being behind this thing, like we’ll all have just forgotten the last five years.
They’re not, the official Apple materials all say “from the creative visionary behind Toy Story and Cars”. We’re all just smart enough to know who that is.
From the man who dared to ask, “What if toys could talk?” and “What if cars could talk” comes a new question: “What if my employees could sue?”
Sadly I think people have.
I had honestly forgotten John Lasseter existed at all till I was reminded, so it wouldn’t have affected me positively or negatively.
I guess if you make enough things people like when your young you can’t get canceled.
I can assure you that 99% of the movie going audience has zero idea of what happened with him post pixar, or even that he left. All that they will know is “Lasseter, that name is associated with some good Pixar stuff, somehow. I guess I should check this out”.
The ads I’ve seen conspicuously avoid mentioning his name, they just reference some of his past credits. That’s probably enough for most people to not make the connection, even if they heard about and remember his scandal.
And given that it’s from his animation studio, it’s not like they can really keep his involvement secret from anyone with a passing knowledge of the business.
Lasseter’s name appears at the end of Lightyear among the dozens of names in the Special Thanks part of the credits roll. Considering he was one of the original creators of the Toy Story franchise, his name only appears like an afterthought… Sad.
“From the guy who put his own stupid face at the beginning of every Studio Ghibli DVD ten years ago.”
With everything that’s happened in the last 5 years, I struggle to remember what happened in the last 5 hours sometimes.
Didn’t this come out months ago? Or is it that boring and generic that I am confusing it with something else?
I can’t think of a comparable that would trigger that response. It did just come out today though.I think the critics are having too much of a field day with it. I expect throw away kids fluff, on a generic concept that is actually hard to explain to kids at the best of times. I don’t think it needs to be as good as critics want to think it should be. I’ll update after we watch it tonight – trailer caught my kids attention – but I’m expecting a C to C- film out of this.
I figured it out, It was Wish Dragon on Netflix which I think came out last year. But I still feel like I watched this exact movie already this year but to be honest I am going on almost a week of no sleep so I may be starting to hallucinate a bit
Obligatory ranking of Pixar films from worst to best26. Cars 325. Cars 2 (I will take this one over the formulaic mediocrity of the third any day)24. Monsters University (incredibly disappointing way to return to this universe)23. Lightyear22. Turning Red21. Finding Dory20. Brave19. The Good Dinosaur (regardless of plot, this is some of the most gorgeous animation I’ve ever seen)18. Luca17. Toy Story 416. Cars15. Incredibles 214. Soul13. Onward12. A Bug’s Life11. Inside Out10. Toy Story 39. Coco8. Toy Story7. Toy Story 26. Finding Nemo5. Monsters Inc.4. The Incredibles3. Ratatouille2. WALL-E1. Up
Obviously no one will agree, but I mostly question that 8-position gap between the delightful Turning Red and the inert brick that was Soul.
Soul was as if the started the concept with “trademarked Pixar heartwarming resolution” but then didn’t bother writing or animating anything would make you care, or be particularly entertained, on the journey to get there. I don’t remember the characters names, what any of them looked like, or much of what happened, just how annoyed I was watching it.Turning Red on the other hand was genuinely fun, even if it was a bit more formulaic.
I agree 100%. I was actually excited for Soul, but it felt like an incredibly underdeveloped sketch of a movie that they forgot to go back and add anything nuanced or distinctive or memorable to past the high concept. It’s maybe not as objectively bad as the Cars franchise, but it was definitely the biggest letdown.
Indeed.
onward being that high is freaky shit.
I liked Onward a lot actually.
Inside Out not in the top ten? Can’t abide that I’m afraid.
Inside Out is overrated.
The Incredibles in the top 10???!!? NOPE.
To each their own. I actually liked Cars 3 and feel like it should be higher up. Onward, Luca, and Soul should be a lot further down (fine, but just … fine). Brave should be above all of that stuff.
And you and I agree about the animation in Good Dinosaur, but when talking about a “film” as a whole, the story should drag that film down by Cars 2.
Brave stays slept on. I think a lot of people thought it was just Pixar Does Disney and skipped it entirely without realizing it totally flips the conventions of the princess story. It’s surprisingly mature and emotionally deep. Plus IMO it was their most visually beautiful film until Coco. It’s definitely Minor Pixar but it should be right at the top of that category.Also, two fun facts I learned about Brave by looking at its Wikipedia page:1) It was the first film released in the Dolby Atmos format.2) It was the last film reviewed by Roger Ebert before his death.
You’re probably right.
And yet, I still think the second halves of Up and WALL-E don’t live up to the promise of their first halves, and the Toy Story trilogy is probably my favorite movie trilogy.
But yeah, it’s a bit of a shame that there hasn’t been a great Pixar film since Coco.
Up is the animated family movie version of Full Metal Jacket, in terms of their mid-film shifts. All the marketing leaned heavily on the first half of the movie, and, as someone who hasn’t seen it since its initial release, I remember very little about what happened in the second half. (I’d also argue the second half of FMJ is super underrated, but that’s another conversation.)
I disagree with a lot of the list but not worth fighting over with one exception, The Good Dinosaur should be last.
Walle-e is better then Up but good choices.
I’d switch Toy Story 3 and Inside Out personally, if only because I had a genuine personal reaction to Riley’s plight in the latter (without wanting to go into too much detail, it genuinely dug up some things from my childhood), whereas Toy Story 3 — while effective — in hindsight is very much the point where Pixar’s tendencies towards overt emotional manipulation started becoming a bit too obvious and ham-handed.
I would rate Turning Red, Incredibles 2, and Soul higher, but yeah this is mostly a very fine list. Your Top 10 is just *chef’s kiss*
I put The Good Dinosaur last because it seems like they were just showcasing new animation technology. I felt like I was watching a sales demonstration of a new GPU. At least Cars 3 had the honesty to be a naked cash grab. But I think you’ve generally got the feel of things.
Turning Red was the most fun Pixar has been in ages and you put it in the Failed Spinoff Hole with Lightyear and Monsters U? PRISON!
20. Brave No …just no.
Too bad. I thought the concept was kinda inspired.
somewhat paradoxically lazy and incredibly overwritten – The AV Club
Also, on a related note, I hate the fact that every animated movie looks like this now.
That was one of the things I liked about Luca. The character design was noticably different for what now has become standard in animation.
Glen Keane stares out across the movie theater, intones, “Now I am become Death…”
John Lasseter at Pixar and Disney Animation did great work as a contributor to and coordinator of a well-oiled creative machine that relied on the remarkable skills and rare talent of hundreds and hundreds of contributors distributed throughout the company. He may have tried really hard to build that same machine at Skydance, but that’s a lot easier said than done. I actually hope that his new studio does eventually get its act together, because more quality animated features would be a good thing, but it’s going to take a lot more than Lasseter’s name on the door.
Posted it as a reply to another comment, but it’s worth noting Skydance Animation is really just the American wing of an existing Madrid-based studio originally called Ilion Animation, but rebranded to Skydance Animation Madrid after partnering with Skydance Media and eventually being bought out entirely. Luck is the first film credited to the American studio, but the Madrid studio did most of the dirty work. Prior to the Skydance partnership in 2017, they’d released 2 films: Planet 51 in 2009 and a Spanish-only release in 2014. Post-Skydance, they released Wonder Park in 2019. Both of their US-released films have less than a 35% on RT with equally-bad audience scores. They’re literally a third-rate overseas CGI factory pumping out celebrity-voiced garbage that kids don’t even like.
Well, all right, then – revise my earlier estimate dramatically downwards.
And there wasn’t Scottish actor available for the voice?
So long as they explain the cat’s accent. Is it from the same swamp as Shrek?
Accents in works of fantastical fiction are weird. I recently got a Steam Deck so I’m replaying some of my old games like Fallout 4. I can deal with giant orc-like mutants and zombie like ghouls just fine. But how does Cait have an Irish accent and Vadim a Russian one? This is 200 years after the apocalypse. It’s not like Irish and Russian people can just move to America.
I… liked it? It has exactly the same pixar tropes of the fantastic office clerks, but to me this fits to a fantastic world where adult life has some rules which make sense and you can survive if you follow them. I laughed, and I cared about the characters, I enjoyed the animation, and I don’t understand the super harsh reception.
Critics were ready to pan this before they even watched it. Many were so enraged that Lasseter got a second shot after the allegations that came out about him that they were ready to sink him before he even got in the water. I just watched it, it’s definitely bloated and has a bit too much expository dialogue but it’s largely enjoyable. The opening 20 minutes are as memorable of a sequence as some of the great Pixar films. Just look at the critic versus audience score on rotten tomatoes; kind of tells the whole story.
… Luck also likely presents one major gear-grinding oddity: what
is the genesis of this universe, and why do its inhabitants all exist to
provide fortune to humans which very few of them ever meet?
In all fairness, you could ask the same question about Sandman. Without taking away anything from the more valid criticisms (it doesn’t look like the quality is anywhere near Gaiman’s work), it’s a common problem with most Gods in fiction: why would they exist just to take care of us? Now that I think of it, it’s a problem with most real-life religions as well…The Greeks had the best explanation: Zeus was bored and wanted to be adulated.