Apple’s feature-length animated film Luck would have been a huge hit… if it had been on Disney+
A mini-review of Luck, and a few thoughts on its place in cinema and what Apple TV+ still needs for its feature films.
Over the weekend, Apple debuted Luck, a feature-length animated film on Apple TV+. Our whole family gathered around the TV to watch it on Saturday and… it’s good! It tells the story of Sam Greenfield, a young woman who seems to be a magnet for bad luck. That is, until she meets a talking cat (Bob) who leaves behind a lucky penny. Suddenly Sam is the luckiest person in the world… until she loses the penny. That leads her on a zany adventure into the world of luck where all of the good and bad luck is produced and sent into our world. There’s a really touching back story that tugs at the heart strings as well. Sam grew up in an orphanage. She always yearned to be adopted and find her forever family, but it never happened. The whole motivation for Sam’s character is to find some luck to give to a little girl at the orphanage who, like Sam, is looking for a forever family to adopt her.
If, like me, you have young kids, show them Luck. It’s a got a great message about acting selflessly to help others, and about the power and importance of adoption. There’s also nothing remotely objectionable in it. It’s a safe film for the whole family.
The only real criticism I have is that it’s a bit long at just shy of two hours. That’s a lot of time to invest in a kids’ movie of this type. There are lots of little quests that Sam and Bob have to tackle in the film that I think could have been condensed without compromising the story.
Honestly, if Luck had debuted on Disney+ it would be a huge hit, and your kids would get toys of Sam or Bob the cat in their McDonald’s Happy Meal. Unfortunately for the film, it’s on Apple TV+ instead, which far fewer households subscribe to. Still, it’s the kind of film that I think Apple TV+ needs more of. There is kids programming there, but there’s not yet a big back catalog of stuff for families. It’s pretty clear that family-friendly content is not the focus of Apple TV+, and I think that’s a bit of a shame. I’m not going to rant too much about that here, but I wrote a column that goes more into that, and you can read it here. I’ll just say that it’s pretty clear that gritty, adult dramas are the focal content type for Apple, and I think that’s a bit of a missed opportunity since it leaves Disney as the only major streamer specifically targeting family content. (While also featuring plenty of content for older kids or adults.)
I also think that Apple still needs a breakthrough film to show the market that it’s a serious player in movies. My sense is that when people think of Apple TV+ they’re mostly thinking about the original TV shows there like Foundation, For All Mankind, See, and especially Ted Lasso. But Apple’s also pushing harder into the feature-length film business, including paying big money to win the distribution rights for major Hollywood films. So far there’s nothing on the film side of Apple TV+ that has done for Apple’s movies what Ted Lasso has done for its shows: generate serious social media buzz and, more importantly, become a cultural phenomenon. Yes, CODA won the Oscar for Best Picture, and that’s massive, but Best Picture winners are often more culturally obscure, and often aren’t big box office draws.
I’ll be curious to see how Luck is received and if it generates any buzz. If you have kids, definitely show it to them. They’ll probably love it like mine did. I’ll also be curious to see how Apple continues to rollout its heightened emphasis on feature-length films.