The Lucky One
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: April 20, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
39
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
21
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Total FilmEmma DibdinMay 7, 2012
A through-and-through weepie that's unlikely to convert any Sparks naysayers. The darker hues of its war-based story nonetheless make the sugary excesses easier to swallow. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriApr 20, 2012
Efron's stopped-clock seriousness is more convincing on a melancholy loverboy than it is on a melancholy soldier. We can't quite sense the harrowing torment of lives lost before his eyes, but we can sense the sweet anguish of being around the woman you adore. It'll have to do. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyApr 19, 2012
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. Read full review
60
MovielineAlison WillmoreApr 19, 2012
The Lucky One aspires to but never reaches the grandly melodramatic heights of the über-Sparks adaptation "The Notebook," though a reconciliation embrace in an outdoor shower of some sort seems deliberately staged to evoke the earlier feature. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderTal RosenbergApr 22, 2012
As long as Efron's shirt comes off, he could play an accountant and no one in the target audience would care. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianM. E. RussellApr 19, 2012
When it sticks to its central flirtation, the latest movie based on a Nicholas Sparks romance, The Lucky One, is blandly pleasant enough. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigApr 19, 2012
So the cliches are as thick as a vat of honey. And the love story proves just as syrupy. But for those who lap up this sappy vision of romance, it contains all the key ingredients. Read full review
50
TimeMary PolsApr 19, 2012
As a person who removes a woman's clothing in the half light of a Southern afternoon, Efron acquits himself reasonably well. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsApr 19, 2012
The leads' chemistry in The Lucky One is more theoretical than actual. Still, the sunsets and sunrises and sunbeams through the windowpanes fall easily on the eyes. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsApr 18, 2012
As a pretty, low-stakes bayou romance The Lucky One works well enough. When asked to carry any kind of dramatic weight, however, it collapses. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanApr 18, 2012
The Lucky One doesn't have the schlock rapture of "The Notebook" (the one Sparks adaptation that has really worked). 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. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineR. Kurt OsenlundApr 17, 2012
At this point, Sparksian romances unfold via their own preordained formula, and measures of their merits largely hinge on how well each can bend the cookie-cutter. Read full review
40
EmpireHelen O'HaraApr 30, 2012
"The Notebook" may have had us blubbing but since then Nicholas Sparks adaptions have offered thin pickings for cinemagoers. For all Efron's boyish charms, this one could be the most ordinary of the lot. Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottApr 20, 2012
As with its gooey, smoochy predecessors, The Lucky One is, beneath it all, a fairy-tale romance, just one with modern trappings. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanApr 20, 2012
The biggest problem, however, comes down to chemistry. If the leads have it, a Sparks romance will work. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternApr 19, 2012
Depending on how you feel about Zac Efron, he is either a sensitive hunk or an inexpressive hunk, but definitely a hunk. 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. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghApr 19, 2012
It's all just empty calories and little more than an excuse to watch Zac Efron play with puppies. It's nice, but for anyone who's too mature for Tiger Beat, it's not enough. Read full review
40
Boxoffice MagazinePete HammondApr 19, 2012
The emotions are flat, predictable and forced when they ought to be romantic. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovApr 18, 2012
The chickiest flick you're likely to see this season. Depending on your taste in romantic fare, you'll either find it toe-curlingly dreamy or ploddingly predictable. Read full review
40
VarietyPeter DebrugeApr 17, 2012
When a novel gives you soapsuds and washboard abs to work with, what other choice does a director have but to provide the most aesthetically pleasing actors, scenery and sets to disguise the thinness of the underlying material. Read full review
40
Time OutDavid FearApr 17, 2012
Question: What's the only thing worse than doing an unfaithful film adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel? Answer: Doing a completely faithful one. Read full review
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