Luca

• Directed by Enrico Casarosa
• June 13, 2021 (Aquarium of Genoa) / June 18, 2021 (Disney+) / March 22, 2024 (US-Theatrical)

Voice Cast

• Luca Paguro-Jacob Tremblay
• Alberto Scorfano-Jack Dylan Grazer
• Giulia Marcovaldo-Emma Berman
• Ercole Visconti-Saverio Raimondo
• Daniela Paguro-Maya Rudolph
• Massimo Marcovaldo-Marco Barricelli
• Lorenzo Paguro-Jim Gaffigan
• Ciccio-Peter Sohn
• Guido-Lorenzo Crisci
• Mrs. Marsigliese-Marina Massironi
• Grandma Paguro-Sandy Martin
• Uncle Ugo-Sacha Baron Cohen
• Giacomo-Giacomo Gianniotti
• Tommaso-Gino La Monica

On the Italian Riviera in the 50s a young sea monster boy able to take human form while on land explores the town of Portorosso with his new best friends while experiencing a life-changing summer adventure.

On some level Luca feels like a variation on much of the animated feature The Little Mermaid-this time with a boy. Luca dreams of the surface world and goes up to it. Well, maybe not dream but he certainly is curious about it. Unlike Ariel he does not have a secret collection in a cave.

Luca and his first friend are not just ignorant but painfully stupid at times. The humor and their ignorance feels like an attempt to mimic Ariel’s lack of knowledge about the surface but the joke has already been done. Don’t try to rehash something in a very similar setting.

It is forbidden to go or be near the surface yet not only does his grandmother tacitly protect or encourage his clear misbehavior but post climax we learn she goes up to the surface on weekends much to everyone’s surprise.

That creates for me a plot hole on why Luca’s family and his neighbors (along with the implication of the broader sea monster community) fear the surface. They claim to know nothing about the surface other than humans are dangerous but clearly HAVE a level of knowledge or ability to get info since ALL sea monsters turn human once they leave the water. The humans have far more reason to fear the local sea monsters. Their secretive nature and occasional sneaking would make anybody nervous. The creatures are causing the fear but the humans get the blame?

Luca meets and befriends Alberto who convinces him quite easily to go up to the surface where both develop a weird obsession with Vespas. I get the vehicle and access to it is meant to represent personal freedom but the whole thing is just done weird. The duo build a fake one with the main action of the plot involving entering a contest to win a real one.

When Luca and Alberto walk on land and dry for just a little bit, they turn human. Apparently it’s the same with all the sea monster creatures. But any type of water makes them change back until it dries just a little bit. It would make a lot more sense if seawater did that. Tap water in theory could expose them. Avoid showers!

Luca and Alberto meet and befriend local girl Giulia who has no character arc in the movie. Not even a minor difference at the end despite being important. She never wins the race against the local bully and broader acceptance by the people of Porco Rosso, er, Portorosso. She just leaves for school with her dad switching her out for a new kid.

Emotional moments are unearned. The understanding between Luca and his parents or Luca tearfully parting with Alberto who is now going to live with Giulia’s one-armed butcher father while his daughter goes off to school is just a beat in the story and not an actual growth. Massimo the butcher was a good man and a loving father, but he only met this kid Alberto a couple days ago and he saw fit taking him under his roof? In the span of maybe a week or so Luca goes from being underwater to going far off to school with his parents’ permission? It’s a real change in attitude and a very huge jump in my opinion.

It just reached the end of the narrative so they hugged it out or the characters feel emotion, but it never connects with the audience. Alberto finally finding a father figure or Luca’s parents go from fearing the surface world to sending him off to school without their supervision in just under two hours or a week (depending on how you look at it). How they came to this just doesn’t feel like it was significant enough for these changes.

This movie is a story that ticks off boxes. A happens and then B happens and then C happens so that they can finally do D but there is no passion or emotion to it. No sense of wonder or discovery or the audience getting a connection to Luca or Giulia or Alberto. I am not even sure if Luca had a crush on Giulia or not. 

None of this means that Luca is unwatchable. It’s just passable and mostly forgettable. It is lacking that once ubiquitous Pixar or Disney magic. I think it best can be described as soulless. It is aping the general presentation of what was done before but does not know how to take it that extra step. At some point in development of this the founder of Pixar left and I think that departure can be felt in the movie. It has the ingredients of something special. Maybe not great, but certainly better than what we got.

Character designs remind me of soft plastic toy versions of the characters. That’s all I could think of when I saw them. Soft plastic toys that developed cracks or smudges over time because you just cannot resist squeezing those soft heads to make them look silly.

Director Enrico Casarosa wanted this to pay homage to Federico Fellini and other classic Italian filmmakers with character designs reminiscent of Hayao Miyazaki. That push to make it a much smaller movie visually like those of another studio made it a boring movie. There’s no excitement. I don’t need them to save the world, but it doesn’t feel like anything mattered to the characters. It comes off as all rather inconsequential.

Luca was not a regrettable experience, but nothing that special. In the end, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed, but you won’t be craving it again like you might Toy Story or Cars.