Just My Luck (2006)

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

A Disappointing Continuation

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

First of all, Lindsay Lohan was COMPLETERY unsuitable for the role. She still looks like the 15-year-old teen from "Mean Girls", so she's very unconvincing as someone, who's got the kind of job most people would have to study for 4 years and work for 10+ years to get promoted to.Extremely formulaic and predictable. Not one moment of spontaneity or surprise. You know how it's going to end -- before you've even started watching it.The acting wasn't very good, but you wouldn't expect much better from a generic rom-com anyway, so even that is hardly a surprise.Nothing at all original about this movie. It's composed of two elements: boring and cheesy. At times, it gets so ridiculous, it's actually a pain to watch.It's an entirely unremarkable movie -- I didn't remember ANYTHING from it the next day. I know it wasn't supposed to be a "serious" movie, but the point of rom-coms is entertainment. There was none here. It was just TOO predictable, generic, and uninspiring.Unless they're a die-hard fan of Lindsay Lohan's, I really don't think anyone would miss anything by skipping this nondescript piece of...

I had heard about this film a couple of times, obviously mainly because of the leading actress starring, and I was interested to see why the critics gave it a low rating, from director Donald Petrie (Mystic Pizza, Miss Congeniality, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days). Basically in Manhattan, New York, socialite and agency worker Ashley Albright (twice Razzie nominated Lindsay Lohan) seems to be the luckiest woman in the city (if not the world), who has success in her work, her social life and on scratch cards. Jake Hardin (Chris Pine) is completely the opposite of lucky, he is clumsy, noticed for the wrong reasons and failing to get anywhere managing his band from the UK, McFly (Tom Fletcher, Danny Jones, Harry Judd and Dougie Poynter as themselves). Their fortunes are due to change the night when they both attend a masquerade ball and in the spur of the moment, while he is masked, they share a kiss, and they seem to have switched their span of luck. So now Ashley has turned into the most unlucky woman ever, crossing paths with a black cat, smashing a mirror, dropping a hair dryer in the bath and much more disaster besides, while Jake has managed to get entrepreneur Damon Phillips (Faizon Love) to promote his band. Ashley is sure that the kiss was the cause for her sudden span of bad luck, so she is determined to find the man who kissed her and gain her original state back. She tries many guys she knows attended the ball, but kissing every one of them hasn't worked, and she she does inadvertently find Jake she doesn't have a clue he is the one, she enjoys his company. Eventually she does find out he has stolen her good luck, but knowing he is having the success he always wanted getting McFly their big break she cannot force herself to kiss him. However she does decide in a desperate move to kiss him, and of course her good luck is indeed restored so that she can gain back the good things in life, but her guilt comes back to haunt her. She shows up for the big gig McFly are putting on, and she helps Jake and the night go on with success, and in the end they form a way to both have not great luck, but maybe things will pick up for them together. Also starring Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's Missi Pyle as Peggy Braden, Bree Turner as Dana, Samaire Armstrong as Maggie, Tovah Feldshuh as Madame Z, Carlos Ponce as Antonio and Makenzie Vega as Katy. Lohan is reasonably good as the spoilt and suddenly humiliated and disastrous girl, and Pine is okay as the guy she will fall for, and McFly are fun to watch and hear with songs like "Five Colours In Her Hair" and "I'll OK", there are moments where the over the top bad luck disasters are amusing, but they could be equally be irritating, so it is a slightly disappointing romantic comedy. Adequate!

First off - I am not a great LL fan. Sure, I can look at her in photos - but when it comes to moving images on a movie screen, she doesn't have the same appeal. Besides, I still remember her as a little girl and it is a little creepy and off-putting looking at her as a grown up woman. But that's just me.Anyway, the premise for this movie struck me straight away as a good way to while away some time and I watched it as a 'family night' with my family - my wife and 3 kids (2 boys and a 6 year girl). I was waiting for dissenting voices from the boys - who are more of a Fast N Furious type movie fan - but heard nothing.It was better than I thought it would be. Pine does well as the luckless good guy and the appearance of McFly was not as bad as most pop-star pop-ups in films. Lohan's 2 friends were watchable also. The only let down for me was Lohan herself. As pretty as she is - looks can't do it on their own. She was wooden and seemed the most inexperienced actor on show which is an unusual feat as she has plenty of screen time behind her.The plot is pure hokum but it is a light, fluffy way to pass a couple of hours. Some of the jokes didn't hit home but there was more hits than misses. The one thing that didn't ring true with me was Lohan's character. Yes she was lucky but she wasn't a bad enough person to root against. So she hadn't enough of a turnaround throughout the movie to show the audience she had truly changed. In fact, she seemed well capable of knuckling down to work when she had to - at the bowling alley - and her only failing was the insane good fortune which followed her everywhere. Maybe she didn't realise how such good luck affected her closest friends but that isn't a capital punishment offence.All in all - the film has some flaws but there is enough about it to make it enjoyable. Maybe if the transformation of Lohan from selfish-girl to appreciative-girl was more pronounced - the audience would have got more out of it. But all in all - it wasn't a complete bust.6/10

If you have a little time to kill, I recommend this movie. It is a good vehicle for Lindsay Lohan, who plays perhaps the luckiest lady in New York City. Chris Pine plays a guy who is perhaps the unluckiest man in the town. Everything goes wrong for him. When they meet at a costume ball and he kisses her, their fortunes get swapped. What happens next is hilarity and chaos as Lohan tries to figure out what has happened to her and reverse her sudden swarm of disasters. The disasters that befall her are marvelously done. I think this movie was funny and good. You will like it if you see it.** 1/2 out of ****