Of late the most amazing thing about Lindsay Lohan has not been her peculiar social life, her ever-changing body size or whether or not her boobs are fake, oh no, it's been that the movies she has been in since becoming vaguely adulty have actually turned out rather well. Both Mean Girls and Freaky Friday have been somewhat mediocre fare lifted by the performance of Lohan and those around her. Whether this is true acting ability or just dumb luck has dogged her though, and with the lightweight Just My Luck this fact still remains rather in the balance.
It's not that the movie doesn't try. At times I enjoyed it quite a little bit, even smiling so much my teeth showed on occasion, but sadly it had that air about it of being a little too down-the-middle, a little too safe and predictable. Even with the rather excessive swearing for a movie of its type. You can tell that the screenwriter, director and cast had some fun during the first third of the movie, coming up with ingenious ways to show off Lohan's character's abnormal good luck, and Chris Pine's appalling bad luck, but as soon as the movie moves past those set pieces it immediately runs out of steam.
By the time everyone has figured out just what is going on (and by way of quick explanation it involves her luck passing to Pine through a kiss, a rather fortuitious one for him but never mind) it all falls into your typically formulaic pattern. It's literally as if they decided that after such a fun opening they really shouldn't bother trying too hard at the end as well. It's tiring this work don't you know. As such though you can immediately tell where it's all going, to the point where you could turn the sound off and still have a perfect realisation of exactly what is happening. And going to happen for that matter.
The actual plot doesn't expand much more than the whole 'luck changing hands' intro, though I was amazed and terrified to find that the ever so disturbing British boy-band McFly feature quite prominently throughout the movie. Seemingly after conquering the UK they can only play bowling alleys in the States (justice!) and need to enlist the help of Jake Hardin (Pine), toiler cleaner extraordinaire to help propel their career forward. With his luck changing so does theirs, and yada yada, they get signed etc etc. Clearly one would need a massive dose of luck to help them do this, so at least the movie is realistic in that respect, but I digress.
Lohan herself does what she does best, smile coquettishly in that ever-so-slightly Lolitaesque manner, and continue to be the most freckly woman in the world (with an orange tan), but while she does her best it's just too timid an offering to do much more than pad her bank account some more. While there is a chance she could become the next Sandra Bullock or, God forbid, Meg Ryan, she's going to need to choose projects with a lot more backbone than this. Better luck next time Lindsay. |
