Luca 2024 Movie Review Trailer

 It's a blandly formulaic fairy tale suffused with honest nostalgia for little Italy in the 1950s. But for Pixar, it's pretty small gnocchi.

With the exception of the kid-friendly, adult-crippling “The Good Dinosaur” (2015), “Luca” is the most insignificant thing Pixar Animation Studios has ever come up with. It sounds like a harsh judgment, but in light of Pixar's recent track record, there are worse things that could be said. My own feeling, though far from universal, is that in the last five years some of Pixar's most ambitious projects have gone off the rails (like the Mexican Day of the Dead fantasy “Coco,” which was beautiful but dragged on, or “Incredibles 2,” which despite knee-jerk praise was noticeably less incredible than the first).

Director: Enrico Casarosa
Writers: Enrico Casarosa, Jesse Andrews, Simon Stephenson
Stars: Jacob Tremblay, Jack Dylan Grazer, Emma Berman

 “Luca,” set in 1950s Italy, is extremely modest and at times feels generic enough to be an animated film from almost any studio. But it's a visually tantalizing small-town nostalgia trip, as well as a perfectly enjoyable fish-out-of-water fable—literally, as it's about a sea monster boy who longs to go ashore.

The early parts are set under the sea, and if you're thinking “The Little Mermaid” meets “Finding Nemo,” you wouldn't be far off. “Luca” is a children's film that shamelessly recycles old formulas. However, it is based on an original minor trope of fairy tale nonsense: in this film, when a sea monster like Luca (Jacob Tremblay), with his electric blue fauna hair and aquamarine skin and gill ears like a creature from the Black Lagoon, leaves the water, instantly converts to human form; When he goes back to the water, he comes back. If this back-and-forth metamorphosis seems too convenient (and not entirely explained), the film still has fun, especially when the conceit turns into a constant threat of blowing the sea monsters' cover.

Luca is desperate to get ashore, despite dire warnings from his parents, the brash Daniela (Maya Rudolph) and the clumsy Lorenzo (Jim Gaffigan). Crawling across a rocky beach, he becomes a curly-haired, big-eyed boy who looks Italian but still sounds, in Jacob Tremblay's performance (of “Wonder”), like an ordinary American boy with very wide eyes open. 

He meets teenager Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer), who's like a sea monster version of a Jonas brother, and who's been on the mainland for a while, living in an abandoned stone castle pillar like a real boy. Alberto is alone except for all the trash he collects, but in his reckless good humor he has a dream: He would do anything to have a Vespa! That's right, the legendary Italian scooter that was introduced in 1946.

With the exception of the kid-friendly, adult-crippling “The Good Dinosaur” (2015), “Luca” is the most insignificant thing Pixar Animation Studios has ever come up with. It sounds like a harsh judgment, but in light of Pixar's recent track record, there are worse things that could be said. My own feeling, though far from universal, is that in the last five years some of Pixar's most ambitious projects have gone off the rails (like the Mexican Day of the Dead fantasy “Coco,” which was beautiful but dragged on, or “Incredibles 2,” which despite knee-jerk praise was noticeably less incredible than the first). “Luca,” set in 1950s Italy, is extremely modest and at times feels generic enough to be an animated film from almost any studio. But it's a visually tantalizing small-town nostalgia trip, as well as a perfectly enjoyable fish-out-of-water fable—literally, as it's about a sea monster boy who longs to go ashore.

The early parts are set under the sea, and if you're thinking “The Little Mermaid” meets “Finding Nemo,” you wouldn't be far off. “Luca” is a children's film that shamelessly recycles old formulas. However, it is based on an original minor trope of fairy tale nonsense: in this film, when a sea monster like Luca (Jacob Tremblay), with his electric blue fauna hair and aquamarine skin and gill ears like a creature from the Black Lagoon, leaves the water, instantly converts to human form; When he goes back to the water, he comes back. If this back-and-forth metamorphosis seems too convenient (and not entirely explained), the film still has fun, especially when the conceit turns into a constant threat of blowing the sea monsters' cover.

Luca is desperate to get ashore, despite dire warnings from his parents, the brash Daniela (Maya Rudolph) and the clumsy Lorenzo.

Watch Luca 2024 Movie Trailer