The Lucky One

It's easy to get lucky when you look like Zac Efron.

Efron stars as Logan - a Marine suffering from his time in the war zone. One fateful morning, he saw a photograph in the sand, walked over to pick it up, and a bomb went off behind him where he was supposed to be standing. Sent home and not knowing how to overcome the trauma he experienced, Logan decides to find the (gorgeous, movie star looking) woman in that photo, so he starts walking from his home in Colorado to her home in Louisiana (with his faithful doggie companion by his side, imagine that loyalty, I would have told Zac to stuff it by Oklahoma).

Will Logan be able to tell Beth (Taylor Schilling) why he has shown up at her door?

What will she do when she finds out?

Based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, people familiar with his work and the movies made from them know what to expect from The Lucky One, but instead of feeling icky about the predictability, the movie (mostly) feels like a comfortable, soothing tale.

Writer Will Fetters and director Scott Hicks hit all the big emotional notes as we watch Beth and Logan contemplate the loss they have experienced, attempt to move on from their haunted pasts, and discover a way to recover while supporting each other. It's a simple movie where the villains are obvious, the heroes do all the right things and you just have an inkling that "true love" will prevail (because each one looks hot, and the dog can only keep you warm at night for so long).

Given everything else is as expected, so are the performances by the actors in The Lucky One. Blythe Danner shows up as the sage and sassy grandmother providing plenty of comic relief and knowing advice when needed, while Schilling is the perfect modern day, fluffy, frilly heroine mixing vulnerability and big, climactic moments of strength at the right times (she looks like she should be the star of an ABC Family series, and I mean that in a good way).

Of course, Efron looks like Efron, which seems to be his biggest assignment in the movie. We have seen him better in Charlie St. Cloud or Me and Orson Welles, but those were more challenging roles for the young thespian. In The Lucky One, he is supposed to play the strong, silent, tortured type, but needs more intensity to draw us in with emotion, instead of drawing in the ladies with his 3-day scruffy beard and piercing blue eyes (note to self: get blue contacts). Plus, we need to get a better feel for Logan coming out of his shell, rather than just taking off his shirt.

However, this movie only works because Logan looks like Zac Efron. Seriously, when you walk everywhere and don't own a car, no one considers it sexy or mysterious if you look like Steve Buscemi (or me). However, when you look like Zac Efron, and you walk everywhere (all the way from Colorado to Louisiana like a crazy, homeless drifter), and you show up at some woman's front door, you are not called a loser or a freak or a stalker (or a crazy, homeless drifter). No one calls 911. She gives you a job and you share a shower together. You think that would happen if Zac's character was played by John Goodman? Go figure.

The Lucky One is longer than it needs to be, which leads to feelings the simplest plot twists and stories are being drawn out with too much filler and not enough detail.

The Lucky One is rated PG-13 for some sexuality and violence.