Generally speaking, I like what Pixar does. Heck, I probably give some of their lesser works a pass as a result of that affection. The studio not only does groundbreaking animation, but they often (though not always) combine it with deeply-felt stories. It’s not uncommon for a lot of people, myself included, to feel themselves tearing up a bit over something that happens at some point in a Pixar movie. Sometimes, that happens to me more than once during the same movie. But there are two types of Pixar movies. One is the revelation that pushes the boundaries a bit and really tells an affecting story. The other is fine, but nothing overly special. Last year saw one of each of those types of Pixar movie. Soul was clearly in the former while Onward felt like a so-so movie at points, something I probably gave a bit of an initial pass to because of who made it.
Well, this year brought us Luca on Disney+. Which end would it fall on?
Set in a small coastal town in Italy–or so it appears–the opening narration tells us there are scary monsters out there, and we get a glimpse of a fish-tailed thing leap over a fishing boat one night, frightening two fishermen. But then it turns out the narration is coming from one of the sea monsters, namely young Luca (Jacob Tremblay). Luca is very curious about the world above the waves where the Land Monsters dwell, and he collects human stuff he finds on the bottom of the ocean, much to the dismay of his parents (Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan), though his grandmother (Sandy Martin) makes some comment about exploring up there once in her youth. Luca would like nothing more than to see what’s up there and gets the opportunity when he meets fellow land-enthusiast Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer). Alberto knows something Luca doesn’t: when their kind dry off, they turn human. As soon as they get wet, they revert to their fish forms, but on dry land, they’re as human-looking as any human. Luca, tired of his parents’ attempts to restrain him, opts to move to the land and explore things with Alberto. They make a new friend in the form of local girl Giulia (Emma Berman), herself a curious person who wants more than anything to win the local Italian triathlon (consisting of swimming, cycling, and eating a load of pasta), but the local bully Ercole Visconti (Saverio Raimondo) has won multiple years in a row despite the fact he is obviously too old to enter a competition set up for kids. But with Alberto and Luca helping, maybe she has a chance this year. Meanwhile, Luca’s parents likewise venture onto dry land to find their missing son…
In many ways, this is small scale (no pun intended) Pixar. There’s no deep musings on the fate of our souls when we die or what the insides of our brains look like or even what our toys do when we get too old to play with them. The movie doesn’t even have anything like the opening montage from Up. To be honest, I even felt the animation of the characters wasn’t quite up to what I generally expect from Pixar. The biggest worries, that the humans will turn on Luca and Alberto if they knew the truth, are largely in the background and played for laughs as the film finds creative ways for the boys to get wet and then hide from Giulia, her father, or Visconti. The only one who catches them is Giulia’s family cat, a most grumpy-looking individual. The cat from Soul she is not.
Then again, there’s nothing wrong with small scale (still no pun intended) stories. The point of a movie like Luca is showing a young boy’s discovery of the world and his need to find the courage to do what he needs to do. Sure, Alberto’s cocksure attitude and (inaccurate) knowledge of the human world gives him a bonus at first, but he’s more than willing to learn more. Besides, for all the talk of the humans to hunt and kill the sea monsters, they don’t see to be that hostile outside the obvious villain. It’s not as pressing as Luca’s finding out what the world is as he grows up a little.
And for all that the animation felt a little lesser than what I am used to, the various transformations between human and fish all work out very well. For the most part, the movie plays up the idea that the humans and the sea monsters aren’t that different from each other. The parents care for their kids. The kids just want to have fun. And nobody likes a bully, but there’s no need to get violent about it. It’s a decent enough movie, not one of my all-time Pixar favorites, but it for the most part works.
Grade: B-
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