Movie Review: The Lucky One

This evening I went to see The Lucky One. Let me begin by saying that I was REALLY looking forward to this movie. I may have a MILD crush on Zac Efron but really, who doesn't? I also want to begin my saying that I have not read the book by Nicholas Sparks. I'm not a big Nicholas Sparks fan. I have read The Notebook and A Walk to Remember and I thought in both cases the movie far surpassed the book in terms of enjoyment.

The Lucky One follows Logan Thibault, a young marine, who finds a picture of a girl while serving in Iraq. Finding the picture causes Logan to narrowly escape a bomb that hits his camp. He then travels to North Carolina to find the girl that caused this good fortune in his life. There he meets Beth, the girl from the photo. Due to a series of poor communication, Logan is unable to tell Beth why he is there and ends up working for her at her kennel. Logan ends up entangled in Beth's life which consists of her seven-year-old son and her abusive ex-husband.

The movie itself is picturesque. It portrays a gorgeous North Carolina setting with endless streams and romantic fields. There are a lot of shots of the sun streaming across the camera (I'm sure there is a very technical movie term for this but I can't think of it now). Google tells me it's a "lens flare". We'll go with that. Director Scott Hicks likes them a lot. Almost too much. We get it, it's a beautiful place that they live. The movie is so filled with gorgeous things to look at: gorgeous actors and a beautiful setting. That's pretty much where the good stuff ends. I found the story itself to be totally predictable. The "villain" of the movie is Beth's ex-husband played by Jay R. Ferguson. His character is so built on stereotypes that it is almost laughable.

If you like romantic comedies and you enjoy Nicholas Sparks movies you'll probably enjoy this one. It was pretty much what I anticipated going into it and I would never complain about getting to see this face for an hour and a half.

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