Lohan's 'Luck' is neither good nor bad

Teen girls will be in clover over hunky Chris Pine and his romance with Lindsay Lohan in the romantic comedy.

Just My Luck is not a particularly auspicious film-going experience.But it is an occasionally entertaining, always fluffy teen romantic comedy with some moderately funny physical comedy by gadabout star Lindsay Lohan.

Though she's trying to be this generation's Lucille Ball, she doesn't come close this time around. A talented young comic actress, she's not as likably funny as she was in Mean Girls or Freaky Friday (which this movie echoes, with its plot of switched existences). But teenage girls may find the movie engaging, given the hottie quotient of Lohan's love interest, Chris Pine, and the catchy music and offbeat personalities of hot young British pop band, McFly.

Lohan plays Ashley, a glamorous New York career girl blessed with unusually good luck. If it's pouring out and she doesn't have an umbrella, the skies will clear. She can get a cab almost anywhere. She wins lotteries and manages to avoid unexpected misfortune like stuck elevators and, instead, ends up in a smooth-running lift with one of the city's most eligible young bachelors. Somehow, despite this charmed life, she is unspoiled, hardworking, and humble. This is a teen fairy tale, after all.

Through a series of events hardly worth chronicling, she loses her good fortune at a party when she shares a passionate kiss with a mysterious guy (Pine, as a beautiful loser who dons geeky glasses when he's on his downward spiral but tosses the specs when his prospects flourish).

You can figure out the rest. There are some fairly nauseating and unfunny scenes involving toilet cleaning, and cat and dog excrement. The assumption must be that those who see this PG-13 movie have been raised on a diet of bathroom-humor comedies and are not quite ready to let that go.

The movie is a notch better than its obnoxiously cloying poster would indicate: Lohan, in huge hoop earrings and fuzzy pink jacket, raises her oversize sunglasses rakishly and winks exaggeratedly. Since Just My Luck is aimed squarely at teens, this might be the movie to drop the kids off at, rather than tag along. Or perhaps fortune will smile on you and the kids may want to pass altogether.