MOVIE REVIEWS: LOTTERY TICKET
The critics couldn’t be more poles apart than they are in their reviews of Lottery Ticket. At one end is Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune who writes, “This movie’s good. It’s fast, deftly paced and funny.” Andy Webster in the New York Times calls it a “crowd pleaser.” Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer describes it as a “buoyant urban fantasy.” And Jennie Punter in the Toronto Globe and Mail praises the filmmakers for delivering “a well-plotted, energetically paced story.” Now compare those comments with Kyle Smith’s in the New York Post: “There’s a one-in-a-billion story to Lottery Ticket: Those are the approximate odds against a script this bad making it out of the introductory seminar at film school.” Or Bill Zwecker’s remarks in the Chicago Sun-Times: “It’s offensive how the unoriginal and trite Lottery Ticket jam-packs just about every negative African-American stereotype you can imagine into its 99-minute running time.” Or David Lee’s comments in the New York Daily News: “What’s missing in this urban comedy is any actual comedy.” But even the most scathing reviews include a fair degree of praise for the performances of Bow Wow and Ice Cube. Claudia Puig in USA Today remarks that “Bow Wow shows his early youthful talent has blossomed into bona fide star appeal.” And Kyle Smith in the New York Post concludes that Ice Cube’s performance “is the only bright spot in a movie that otherwise fumbles every opportunity to be funny, exciting or insightful.”
