tek's rating: ¼

The Luck of the Irish, on Disney Channel
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This came out in 2001, but I don't remember if I first saw it then or sometime later. Either way, it was before I started writing reviews on my website. When I eventually did start, I made a placeholder page for my review, but didn't say much in it because I didn't remember it so well. I finally started a real review when I re-watched the movie in 2024 (on St. Patrick's Day).

The movie stars Ryan Merriman as a high school basketball player named Kyle Johnson. There's a heritage day coming up at school, but Kyle's parents, Bob and Kate, are suspiciously evasive when he tries to learn about his own heritage. There's also a girl named Bonnie, who is in charge of the school's heritage event, and keeps trying to get Kyle to tell her where his family is from, but he doesn't want to admit that he doesn't know.

One day, Kyle and his best friend, Russell, go to an Irish festival, where they meet a strange old man whom they later learn is Reilly O'Reilly (Henry Gibson). Soon thereafter, Kyle begins having bad luck, which is strange because his whole life he's had nothing but good luck. He eventually realizes his lucky coin, which he wears on a necklace, has been replaced with a fake. When he goes to tell his parents about this, he learns that his mother is a leprechaun, who has suddenly returned to her natural tiny size. Kyle himself begins getting shorter, among other aspects of a gradual transformation into a leprechaun, but we never get to see him become fully leprechaun, because his transformation is slower due to only being half leprechaun. He also learns that the man from the festival is his grandfather, and Kate assumes he stole Kyle's lucky coin, to get back at her for marrying a human. However, when he goes to confront his grandfather (accompanied by Bonnie), Reilly says he didn't steal the coin, but surmises that it was a step dancer who was at the Irish festival, named Seamus McTiernan (Timothy Omundson), who is also a leprechaun. So Kyle and his parents and grandfather and Bonnie, and eventually Russell, must try to get the coin back.

I don't want to reveal any more of the plot, but I found the movie reasonably amusing and entertaining. And it was neat to see Omundson in it, because now I know him from some other things, which he did after this movie, so of course I didn't know who he was when I first saw this. And... I dunno what else to say. But I'm glad to have seen it again, and I liked it a bit more than I expected to.


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