Luck

image for Luck

Short takes

Not suitable under 5; parental guidance to 6 (scary scenes)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Luck
  • a review of Luck completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 8 August 2022.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 5 Not suitable due to scary scenes.
Children aged 5–6 Parental guidance recommended due to scary scenes.
Children over the age of 6 Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Luck
Classification: G
Consumer advice lines: Very mild themes and occasional coarse language
Length: 105 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Sam Greenfield (voice of Eva Noblezada) is an orphan who always seems to have bad luck. Now she is 18, she is being moved out of care and into a place of her own, leaving behind her young friend, Hazel (Adelynn Spoon). Sam tells Hazel she will always be there for her and hopes she will find her ‘forever family’. Alone in her apartment, Sam starts a new job in a grocery store but, as usual, everything goes wrong for her. Sam laments her woes to a cat called Bob (Simon Pegg), who leaves behind a lucky penny. Sam plans to give the penny to help Hazel find her adoptive family. While Sam has the penny, her luck does seem to change around, however, when she accidentally flushes it down the toilet, she feels her luck has run out.

Hoping Bob might be able to give her another lucky penny, Sam chases after him, following him through a portal to the Land of Luck. This is a magical land full of leprechauns, a dragon, a unicorn and a bossy captain. Sam is disturbed to find that beneath the Land of Luck is the Land of Bad Luck where things aren’t so pleasant. She discovers that the leprechauns mix up the good and bad luck and send them out randomly into the world, which seems to her rather unfair. However, she discovers that not all bad luck is a bad thing as it can teach us important life lessons.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Magic; Fantasy; Orphans; Superstition.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some slapstick violence in this movie in which no-one is hurt, including:

  • Objects fall from above and land on Sam, knocking her down, then she gets hit in the head by a ball.
  • Sam’s bed folds up with her in it, shutting her in a cupboard.
  • Sam falls from a limb on a tree, and gets picked up by a tow-truck.
  • Sam jumps from a window and lands in a rubbish skip.
  • In the Land of Luck, Sam lands upside down on the transport system.
  • Leprechauns get thrown about and land up against a window pane.
  • In the Land of Bad Luck, Sam goes flying through the air and falls down a chute.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • The pink dragon is a friendly creature but she does breathe fire at times.
  • The Roots and Goblins in the Land of Bad Luck, are a bit scary looking.
  • The Land of Bad Luck is a dark and scary place.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • Sam feels she isn’t ready to move out of the care home and cries.
  • As a young girl, Sam was rejected by all of her prospective adoptive families.
  • Hazel’s weekend visit with a prospective family is cancelled at the last minute.
  • A cat is seen wrapped in bandages but Bob reassures Sam that lucky cats heal quickly.
  • The captain is a bossy woman who seems to have a vendetta against Bob.
  • The captain tells Bob he is a liar and a thief. Bob has spent 8 of his 9 lives in the Land of Bad Luck.
  • Sam believes her life is full of bad luck.
  • Sam cries when Bob tells her she isn’t a bad person.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

  • Nothing further of concern.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • There is some flirtation between the dragon and the unicorn.

Nudity and sexual activity

  • None noted.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • There is a tropical juice bar where a barman serves drinks. The drinks look to be alcoholic.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Bugger
  • Screw it up
  • Bummer
  • Butt.

In a nutshell

Luck is an animated movie about the fact that some people seem to have better luck in life than others. The film takes place mainly in a magical land of bright colours and gentle characters, where everything seems to move seamlessly like clockwork. It does also show the other side to good luck, where things don’t seem to go so well and, as such, it displays both sides of what happens to most people in life. The film is made for all ages but due to some scary characters and scenes, and the use of infrequent coarse language, it isn’t suitable for children under 5 and parental guidance is recommended for children aged 5-6 years old.

The main messages from this movie are that bad luck can sometimes be a good thing as it makes you appreciate the good things in life; and that families can come in many different forms.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Kindness and caring
  • Empathy
  • Courage
  • Perseverance
  • Overcoming challenges
  • Resilience
  • Selflessness.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Why are some children left in care homes and don’t have a family of their own?
  • Are there such things as good and bad luck or do we define our own paths?
  • Why didn’t Bob want to get close to anyone?