In The Lucky One, a young Marine, Logan (Zac Efron), on duty in Iraq, notices something reflecting sunlight in the dirt.
He walks over to it, picks it up, it’s a photo.
BOOM, a big explosion occurs right where he was standing just a moment ago. The photo is of a young, pretty, smiling, blonde woman. He decides that this photo must be of his guardian angel and it isn’t too long before he’s proven right.
Soon the young Marine returns to America, picture in tow.
After quickly discovering he’s having trouble adapting to civilian life, he decides to go for a walk, searching for the landmark that appears in the photo behind his guardian angel.
Eventually he finds that landmark in Louisiana and the girl, Beth (Taylor Schilling).
After not coming clean on the photo, the nature of his journey, nor his intentions, the Marine simply works at the woman’s kennel until she falls for him, which she does.
We say, yes, this is a chick flick, but it’s also bad.
TAYLOR: This movie is lacking flair and intelligence. It was base, blunt, silly at times, it made me laugh out loud at an inappropriate scene due to bad acting.
I don’t know who that girl is but she should eat a sandwich and take a class in subtlety, in that order. The Lucky One is not entirely without merit, but nearly.
HOWE: I found The Lucky One creepy. It’s nothing more than a stalking movie, and by this I mean he found the photo, he traced the girl down to where she lives and got a job at the kennels she owns.
If he just wanted to say thank you to her for saving his life via the picture, he should of done it right at the beginning when they met and left after that.
It would of saved me from watching an hour and 20 minutes of a terrible love story.
TAYLOR: It was boring. There were aspects to the film that I enjoyed. Beth always wore white and was often seen with golden sunlight around her, like she was an angel.
Logan was often watched from a distance, through the glass of a window or door, as if he was always the subject of the stalking, rather than the other way around. However, nothing much happens in this film.
HOWE: I do enjoy a good film that moves me, that puts the lump in my throat or the feel of tears starting to well up. The Lucky One did nothing for me. I found Toy Story 3 more touching, and the acting was better.
TAYLOR: I don’t mind romantic movies. The Notebook comes to mind as a great love story, but it had interesting characters in interesting times.
The Lucky One had very little conflict and absolutely no plot devices to move anything forward. It wasn’t just the inexperience of the actors, the script was also stupid.
HOWE: Once again, the best role in the movie goes to a canine friend in the form of Logan’s German shepherd. Chalk up another one for the dogs ...
TAYLOR gives The Lucky One one yawn out of five.
HOWE gives it 1.5 lighthouses out of five.
The Lucky One is currently playing at the Pen Mar Cinema Centre.
Brian Taylor and Peter Howe are movie reviewers living in the Okanagan.