If nothing else, "Just My Luck" is a clever marketing vehicle for two products: one every teenager is already familiar with -- "singer" and "actress" Lindsay Lohan -- and one every teenager will be familiar with after seeing the movie -- British boy band "McFly."
The premise of "Just My Luck" is painfully simple (see also "absurd"): luck is a tangible force, as dependable and provable as gravity; it's just that some people have good luck, and some people have bad luck.
Lohan's character Ashley is one of the people who possess an abundance of good luck; it always stops raining when she ventures outside, she always gets a cab immediately, and when something goes wrong, it always goes wrong in her favor.
Narrowly missing a crowded elevator at the beginning of the movie becomes an epic blessing for Ashley; another empty elevator arrives moments later, on which she'll secure a date with "one of US Weekly's most eligible bachelors" (Chris Carmack) and also garner a promotion -- as the crowded elevator will get stuck and she'll be forced to make a brilliant, albeit improvised, marketing presentation to record executive Damon Phillips (a no-nonsense Faizon Love).
Jake (Chris Pine) is one of these people who possess an abundance of bad luck. Perpetually unkempt and ridiculously clumsy, Jake repeatedly blunders the opportunity to pass McFly's demo CD to Damon Phillips. He even finds a way to get arrested in the process when his pants break and he ends up on top of a jogger in Central Park (and when he requests to be booked by police at the 56th district, we learn that Jake's bad luck often ends in arrest).
Apparently, Jake discovered McFly in England and convinced them to come to the U.S., promising to secure them a big record deal in New York. He functions as their part-time manager/audio technician at Rock 'N' Bowl, a bowling alley with a stage where he's also a fulltime janitor -- and a bad one at that.
When the band threatens to head back to England, he makes one last desperate attempt to get their demo in Phillips' hands. Jake, disguised as a masked dancer, sneaks into the carnival-themed bash Ashley is coordinating for Phillips' record label, "Downtown Masquerade," and by a twist of fate, Jake and Ashley end up kissing and exchanging lucks. Now everything starts going right for Jake -- he saves Phillips' life and the band gets signed -- and everything starts going wrong for Ashley -- the bash ends in disaster and she loses her job.
The rest of the flick is a perfunctory exercise in getting the two back together without ruining the other's life. The ending is predictable. The jokes -- a combination of slapstick and Nickelodeon wit -- are stale and unfunny. And the good luck/bad luck premise becomes increasingly absurd as the filmmakers, who must have thought they were really onto something, lay it on even thicker as the movie advances.
If you must have more Lohan, re-watch "Mean Girls" on DVD.
"Just My Luck," rated PG-13 for brief sexual references, is now showing.
