Click here for the review of The Lucky One

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I liked this line from the review:

"A kiss is just a kiss, but when these two are locking lips, they seem like they're into each other rather than counting the number of zeros in front of the decimal point on their paychecks."

The lead actress is starring in the Atlas Shruggs movies. The second is coming out here soon.

I enjoyed the first half of the movie. Although the movie does rush through some potentially interesting material and that's when Efron's character is back from being deployed stays with his sister and it's hinted at that he suffers from PTSD. Alas, the movie doesn't explore any of this, completely glossing it over and then when he leaves his sister's place, it's never brought back up again. And that is disappointing. But otherwise, the first half of the movie is pretty good. It's got a nice unhurried pace. The cinematography is gorgeous and I love the score to the movie. It's a nice and understated (except for during the love scenes when it's a bit over done) and simple yet quite lovely to listen to. There is a sufficiant amount of chemistry between the main characters. Yes, it's a bit contrived that Efron's character can't seem to get his secret out to the lead female. But it's a forgiveable contrivance IMO. What isn't so forgiveable and really ends up bogging the movie down, especially the second half of the movie, is the ex-husband character. He isn't a hinderance in the first half, because his screen time in the first half is extremely limited. But alas, he becomes increasingly more prominant in the second half. And he's such an annoying, useless character whose sole purpose is to create an extra amount of conflict for the leads. It isn't needed and it's so cliched and badly written. I don't fault the actor, he's just playing the character as written. And he does have one good moment when you can see the pride he has in his son but also see the jealousy he has in him for Efron's character. It's the only good moment involving the character and that has more to do with the actor's performance than the writing. The character's prominance just ruined the movie so much so that the rest of the movie, including the ending, just didn't work for me. I didn't buy anything that happened in the 3rd act, which is unfortunate.

6/10

** 1/2 out of ****