The Lucky One

Critic Reviews

As long as Efron's shirt comes off, he could play an accountant and no one in the target audience would care.

Well-acted schmaltz with some gaping plot holes.

There's not much to the movie besides handsome sets, sun-dappled photography and a plot as predictable as the verse in a Hallmark card.

-Stephen WhittyFull Review

[Hicks] hits the beats - lonely woman, hunky stranger - without bothering to develop even the slightest depth.

-Elizabeth WeitzmanFull Review

The overheated eroticism could have at least made for a camp classic, but the film's chilling narcissism ultimately makes for a pleasureless fantasy.

-Rafer GuzmanFull Review

I'm beginning to think writer Nicholas Sparks isn't one person at all, but a roomful of ladies doing Harlequin-romance Mad Libs.

-Sara StewartFull Review

A sudsy romantic melodrama that in the 1950s would have been directed with lurid overkill by the likes of Douglas Sirk.

-Ann HornadayFull Review

Another Nicholas Sparks novel, another cinematic brush with insulin shock.

-Rick GroenFull Review

A lazy (in all ways) Nicholas Sparks romance that's as pretty and vacant as its hero.

-Amy BiancolliFull Review

Logan's opening voice-over describes how fate can throw one's life off-course, but nothing about the film that follows strays from Sparks' well-established tear-jerking formula...

-William GossFull Review

The Sparks-styled romance has almost become its own movie genre - predictable, pure of heart, sentimental and never straying from the boy-meets-girl basics, or the surface, for that matter - and in that "The Lucky One" delivers.

-Betsy SharkeyFull Review

Unable as I am to locate any feelings about him, I see Mr. Efron as a hunk with a problem delivering sustained dialogue in units of more than one or two sentences.

-Joe MorgensternFull Review

The cliches are as thick as a vat of honey. And the love story proves just as syrupy.

-Full Review

The Lucky One doesn't have a genuine emotion in it or a plausible reason to endure it. It's strictly for the sisters of the cult of Sparks and the men who love them.

-Peter TraversFull Review

The latest screen adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks romance in which fate, destiny, and sage cliches whirl together in a sugar crash of meaningful moments and tasteful eroticism.

-Steven ReaFull Review

Seeing [Schilling] and Efron fumble at each other is like watching a stick of butter and a bag of flour not turn into a cake.

-Wesley MorrisFull Review

How can bestselling author Nicholas Sparks, the Thomas Kinkade of the paperback novel, keep churning out sluggish melodramas that lose not one ounce of sap on the trip to the big screen?

-Linda BarnardFull Review

Despite a plot hole so big it could generate its own gravity field, it's still not a bad movie.

-Connie OgleFull Review

Efron acquits himself reasonably well. Is he sexy enough to make credible a scene where Beth seems to have an orgasm while washing dishes and watching him lift bags of dog food? Maybe not, but, honestly, who could?

-Mary F. PolsFull Review

In "The Lucky One," an occasionally shirtless Zac Efron lifts heavy things, plays the piano, reads "Moby Dick," bonds with a small child and fixes a tractor. Puppies lick his face.

-Barbara VanDenburghFull Review

...a product that's rolled off the Nicholas Sparks assembly line with every ridiculous plot contortion hard-welded into the structure.

-James RocchiFull Review

The sun breaks through the clouds, you smile through your tears, and your cynicism - even the tiny voice in your head crying out, "Wait, none of this makes any sense!" - is silenced by sweet music and swelling sentiment.

-A.O. ScottFull Review

"The Lucky One" left me stone cold.

-Randy MyersFull Review

The seventh and latest Sparks project to hit the screen, and the sixth one likely to elicit the response "Well, it's no 'Notebook.'"

-Michael PhillipsFull Review

If you've ever liked a Nicholas Sparks movie, you're likely to enjoy this one.

-Roger EbertFull Review

You can roll your eyes, or you can give in.

-Christy LemireFull Review

The trouble with the movie isn't that it's too girly-swoony; it's that it tries to achieve emotion through glowy sunsets and a paint-by-numbers script.

-Owen GleibermanFull Review

"The Lucky One" is the edgiest-ever film adaptation of the writings of Nicholas Sparks. Which isn't saying much.

-Roger MooreFull Review

The central love story is well-constructed for what it is; it offers the requisite amount of fantasy with just a miniscule dollop of realism. It's escapism for women and an adequate date flick. Or, to be more succinct, it's a Nicholas Sparks movie.

-James BerardinelliFull Review

There's no dramatic or visual scheme here, just random camera angles tossed and mixed.

-Todd McCarthyFull Review

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