One-hundred and one minutes of Zac Efron on a giant screen doesn’t sound too horrible to me. As it turns out, it was not horrible at all. “The Lucky One,” starring Zac Efron and Taylor Schilling hit theatres April 20 and has already accumulated $22.5 million.

“The Lucky One” is about a Marine named Logan Thibault, played by Efron, who finds a picture of a woman after a deadly raid on a compound. The picture has a note on the back reading “Keep safe, X.” Logan survives a handful of fatal events in the next year and assumes it is because of the picture.

When he returns home from war, he decides to find the woman in the picture. He finds her, named Beth (played by Schilling), but doesn’t tell her about the photo. He begins working for Beth and her mother, Ellie (played by Blythe Danner) at their family-owned kennel. Beth and Logan end up falling into inseparable love.

The expectations before seeing the film were that it would either be a refreshing take on a love story or just another cookie-cutter Nicholas Sparks love story.

Writer Will Fetters did an outstanding job transferring the story from Sparks’s book to a screenplay. The film did throw some new factors into the love story mix, such as solid imagery and symbolism, but had some strikingly unoriginal aspects. All in all, the key themes of the film carried it to an entertaining level.

The cast seemed to jive together well for the most part.

Efron and Schilling had substantial chemistry but not the strongest of any love story. Efron’s character was always serious around Schilling’s and barely let loose like those in love in other films. This could be digested as a bad thing or another factor that makes this film a unique love story.

The film had a few minor negative aspects. There is a combat scene at the beginning of the film followed by flashes of light and color. As a person who is usually fine with flashes of light and color, believe me when I saw this, it almost led to sensory overload. Thankfully, the rest of the film made up for this headache-inducing beginning with beautiful scenery throughout.

As mentioned, it would have been nice to see some more chemistry between Efron’s character and Schilling’s character, but the amount of chemistry portrayed did not take away from the film. Efron also made up for this by having impeccable chemistry with Beth’s son, Ben, played by Riley Thomas Stewart.

Otherwise, this film had a realistic take on the hardships that a Marine faces upon coming home from war.

The love story was easy to follow, although at times the plot was a bit slow-moving. Danner’s character contributed comedic relief with her role of supportive grandmother. All in all, this film was an entertaining enough love story that left the viewer thinking about the effect people can have on others’ lives.