Movie Breakdown: Luca (Noah)

Pre-Screening Stance:

After being an ENORMOUS Pixar fan for most of my life, I’ve been pretty up and down on some of their recent releases. Pair my general belief that movies dumped on streaming platforms are lesser than the ones on allowed in the big picture houses and the fact that the original trailer for this film made me cringe and I’ll say my expectations are low.

Post-Screening Ramble:

There’s a part of me that wants to say Luca is a minor film in Pixar’s canon, but I can’t exactly say why. It has the elements of traditional a Pixar release – a fun concept (sea creatures who look human when they’re out of the water), a feel good narrative (two sea monster boys become friends while they quest for a Vespa), beautiful animation and a lovely slapstick sensibility – but all of it feels muffled. And guess what? It doesn’t matter, minor or not, Luca is a lovely film about friendship and family and setting off on one’s own with a gentle sense of humor that had me alternating between chuckles and emotional sighs throughout. On first glance, the character design of the fish people is too colorful, too floppy, too something, but as the film moves forward and you become enamored with the relationship between Luca (Jacob Tremblay in fine form) and Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer continuing a solid run of interesting films) it doesn’t bother as much. Especially when paired against the plucky joy of Emma Berman’s Giula and the sweet brick of her father and his nasty little cat. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the film’s bad guy, Giacomo, a perfect ode to the sort of snot-nosed Italian that populated films of the ’60s. And yeah, it’s a quieter film from Pixar, focused on the characters with less massive set pieces of recent flicks by the company. But minor? I don’t think so.

One Last Thing:

I want a whole film about Giula’s dad’s back story. That’s it. Give it to me Pixar.