Review: 'Luck,' even with John Lasseter involved, is a pale imitation of Pixar

The all-ages animated adventure “Luck” is being touted, quite loudly in some quarters, as Apple TV+’s first major foray into the territory long held by Pixar Animation Studios — with much attention to the return of Pixar’s and Disney’s former rainmaker, John Lasseter, as a producer, after an industry exile due to reports of toxic behavior.

That backstage intrigue may be fascinating to some, and it’s certainly more intriguing than the bland imitation Pixar movie that is the eye of the marketing department’s media storm.

The story centers on Sam Greenfield (voiced by Eva Noblezada), a preternaturally unlucky young woman whose life is filled with flat bicycle tires, workplace mishaps and toast always landing jelly side down. Her life, as the movie begins, has been spent in a foster home, which she is aging out of as she turns 18, with a long list of families who looked her over and decided not to adopt her.

But Sam remains a kind person, feeding her panini to a black cat, or encouraging young Hazel (voiced by Adeline Spoon), a younger denizen of the foster home, when it’s her turn to meet potential parents. When she finds a lucky penny, she’s determined to give it to Hazel — but before that happens, Sam loses the penny.

The key to getting the penny back, Sam quickly realizes, involves that cat. Turns out the cat, Bob, can speak (with the voice of Simon Pegg), and leads Sam to a secret portal to the Land of Luck. It’s a land of lucky pennies, leprechauns, ladybugs and other symbols of good luck — all overseen by a lucky dragon (voiced by Jane Fonda), who is determined to stamp out any traces of bad luck she encounters.’

What’s absent from the Land of Luck, Bob tells Sam in his most agitated voice, are humans — especially ones as unlucky as Sam. And Bob’s efforts to get Sam her own penny, and then get her home, without risking an entrance into the Land of Luck’s polar opposite, a land of bad luck.

Director Peggy Holmes and writer Kiel Murray get so into the details of luck — from Japanese waving cats to how the Scots think a black cat is good luck — that they don’t see how derivative the story is. There’s a distinct vibe of “Monsters, Inc.” another tale of a human girl infiltrating a secret supernatural world hidden from humankind.

Some of the gags — like a unicorn (voiced by comic Flula Borg) who collects bad luck — are engaging, but there’s a distinct lack of hills and valleys in Murray’s script, and it all chugs along to a predictable conclusion. The one kind of luck missing for Apple TV+ in “Luck” is beginner’s luck. 

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‘Luck’

★★1/2

Starts streaming Friday, August 5, on Apple TV+. Rated G. Running time: 106 minutes.