'Just My Luck'
Lindsay Lohan's character goes through lots of pain, and so does the audience
Ashley Albright (Lohan) is a young account exec at a prestigious PR firm who lives a charmed life: It's sunny wherever she goes, her lottery ticket always wins and when a the dry cleaner gives her Sarah Jessica Parker's dress by mistake, it just happens to be her size.
At a masquerade ball she's throwing for music mogul Damon Phillips (Faizon Love), the perpetually unlucky Jake (Chris Pine) crashes in hopes of slipping a demo into Phillips' hands. Both disguised, Ashley and Jake indulge in an anonymous dance and then a kiss, through which their luck switches places.
Now Jake is on the fast track to success managing the British band McFly, while Ashley loses her job, apartment, clothes and optimism. Not knowing that they've met before, the two become friends, with Jake helping Ashley cope with her newfound bad luck. But Ashley has a plan: If she can figure out which of the masked dancers she kissed at the party, maybe a well-placed smooch will get her luck back.
There are several appropriately silly moments that will appeal to young girls, especially a sequence in which Ashley goes around town with her two pals (Bree Turner, Samaire Armstrong) tracking down the guys at the party and kissing them without warning. Most of the time, though, the humor is pretty lame, reveling in Ashley's misfortune.
While "Mean Girls" was the pinnacle of Lohan's teen movie success, "Just My Luck" doesn't give her clever lines or depth. Although she lacks the rubber-faced goofiness of her cohort Amanda Bynes, Lohan does an adequate job with the physical comedy and is willing to sacrifice her poise and looks for it. The problem is, most of it isn't funny, just painful or gross, like when she drops a contact lens in kitty litter, wears it anyway and is forced to wear an eye patch later when infection sets in.
This is the second time that Pine ("Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement") has played a main love interest. Despite his good looks, he's not the typical movie hunk, which is probably why he works well as this quirky character. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Armstrong, who relies on her offbeat personality a bit too much and comes off as ditzy and annoying.
Another highly irritating aspect is the film's blatant marketing of the band McFly. The filmmakers aren't content to merely feature the band in a cameo as most WB-type shows do. Instead, the neo-punk Beatles ought to get fifth billing for their massive amount of screen time, lines and songs they're able to squeeze into a film that's supposed to spotlight Lohan. Even the band's real-life album is called "Just My Luck." It's the sort of packaging that you'd expect from a made for TV movie, not a studio film.
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