Pixar Pint #24: Luca

Who is Luca? What is Luca?

Welcome back to Pixar Pints, our two-summer-long journey through all 26 Pixar films in release order.

When is Luca? Where is Luca? How is Luca?

Why is Luca?

Let’s get into it.

Luca quick facts

Release date: June 18, 2021 | Director: Enrico Casarosa | Music: Dan Romer

Starring: Jacob Tremblay (Luca), Jack Dylan Grazer (Alberto), Emma Berman (Giulia)

John Ratzenberger as: No one. Not even a cameo this time. He’s just gone. Not so much as a mention of him on this film’s Wikipedia page.

Budget: Undisclosed (but probably in the $150-200 million range) | Box office: $49.8 million

Academy Awards: Nominated for Best Animated Feature but lost to Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Encanto

Eli

This is the first time I’d seen this movie.

Aesthetic: 7/10 | It’s Italy, but I can’t tell if the movie wants to play that fact straight or not. I don’t know if you can count lines of dialogue as part of the aesthetic, but Giulia saying “Santa Mozzarella” and other saintly cheeses all the time sounded less like an authentically Italian experience and more like a joke that detracted from the experience. The aesthetic didn’t seem like it was supposed to be a joke, and yet. There are underwater scenes but they’re just an extended exposition and seem like a visual afterthought. It’s not Pixar’s best cityscape and it’s not Pixar’s best water world. The character designs overall bump this up a notch but this movie looks exactly fine. No better, no worse.

Animation: 8/10 | I wanted to give this a 10 because it’s Pixar and Pixar is generally excellent at animation, but I dunno. This movie’s juxtaposition to Soul does a pretty good job of drawing a line between great Pixar animation and simply good Pixar animation. Nothing about this wowed me, but it did its job.

Story: 0/10 | I am so uninspired by this movie that I can’t even pretend to write an honest review of the plot. It centers on outsiders learning to fit in with a society that doesn’t like them, which in itself is such an overused trope that I’m surprised Pixar—almost always groundbreaking or at least intriguing storytellers—felt they needed to touch it. And the way it’s presented is so obvious throughout, ending with the society embracing them because hey, they’re not so different after all.

Characters: 0/10 | This movie has everyone. It has Protagonist. It has Wacky Friend with Mysterious Past. It has Sunshine and Rainbows Girl. It has Overprotective Mother. It has Physically Imposing Yet Emotionally Mature Father (no relation). It has Cartoon Villain. There are gay undertones between Protagonist and Wacky Friend that I’m pretty sure were unintentional. Overprotective Mother is such an obviously bad parent that I wanted to scream at the TV. It’s impossible to care what happens to Cartoon Villain in the end because he seems so one-note and unhuman.

Acting: 9/10 | I liked the child voice actors a lot. Given my critique of Soul being that it would have worked better if they casted someone like Maya Rudolph as 22, it’s kinda funny (derogatory) that she was instead cast as a white woman sea monster in this movie, but whatever.

Music: 8/10 | It’s good, not great. I’m not really sure what there in this movie for the music to add to but I liked the score more than I didn’t.

Final score: 5/10 | Nothing in this movie takes me by surprise. It has an exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion. It is told in three acts. It is a movie. I got movie vibes. I can’t help but try to compare this to Ratatouille, another movie with about half of the same plot but a more novel story and a harder-hitting message. Ratatouille has a weird power dynamic thing going on that this movie avoids, and while that is most of why I don’t like Ratatouille, at least it made me think critically about what it said about the world and the social hierarchy. Luca doesn’t do that. It doesn’t do anything.

Leah

Aesthetic: 8/10 | Luca’s imagination sequences were very creative and fun. I also liked getting to see the sea monster society at the beginning of the movie. The Italian aesthetics in the village looked good.

Animation: 9/10 | Pixar is as impressive as ever, animating underwater, fun character movement, bicycle shenanigans, the whole Pixar nine yards.

Story: 7/10 | I thought the story was cute. It was a sweet coming of age story. Luca had to deal with conflict with his family, with his best friend, with society…it’s all something most people go through growing up. The resolution of all the conflicts with acceptance is the hopeful note that makes the ending feel good. The narrative was structured competently overall.

Characters: 7/10 | Pixar used a lot of tried and true archetypes in this movie. I liked the main trio of Luca, Alberto, and Giulia. They reminded me a lot of myself and my childhood friends. I think a lot of kids see themselves as the underdogs, so it makes them relatable. The supporting characters felt a bit flat. For instance, Luca’s mother didn’t have much substance beyond being an overprotective parent. I think the movie could have benefitted from fleshing out these characters more. Also, the antagonist might be the most pathetic Pixar villain. Bullying children like that? C’mon. Obnoxious presence through and through.

Acting: 9/10 | The actors’ performances mad the film fun!

Music: 8/10 | I loved how they scored the very end of the movie where Luca is on the train. The music at the very beginning of the movie definitely set the tone. The rest of it didn’t really stick out to me that much.

Final score: 8/10 | It’s a fun summer movie. I think it’s a cute story about growing up, with the usual Pixar artistry. Not Pixar’s most groundbreaking achievement, but fun and relatable, especially for the younger kids watching the movie.

Maddy

Aesthetic: 10/10 | Animation: 10/10 | Story: 7/10 | Characters: 8/10 | Acting: 9/10 | Music: 9/10

Yeah, I like this one. If this was a ranking of Pixar films in the context of being comfort films, this would be #1. Every time I watch this film, I cannot help but smile and just enjoy the vibes this movie gives off.

Its story might be basic, but, like…does it need to be anything more than it is? Can Pixar just release a film about kids enjoying summer in a seaside town? Just vibing and enjoying their time? I really wish Pixar would make more films like Luca. There’s value in these kinds of films that aren’t out there to say anything profound or deep with their themes. It’s not trying to be something grand like so many big studio movies feel they have to be nowadays. It’s a simple film for people to enjoy and become engrossed with its characters, their lives, and the world they inhabit. It’s the simple power of art and the medium of film.

This film really solidified to me that Pixar was in a new creative era, trying new things with their films, and it was seemingly sticking to the wall. It sucks the world had to keep Luca on Disney+ (and somewhat Disney seemingly not wanting to try and do a theatrical run with this film in the States while other countries got one, but I’ll talk more about this in the next Pint). But Luca will live in my heart as Pixar’s most heartwarming film.

Final score: 53/60 or 8/10

David

Aesthetic: For the first time in a while, I feel like Pixar stumbles a bit here. It’s good, but it doesn’t pull me in the way their past movies have. As much as I like to poke a little good fun at Italy, a lot of the homage felt tongue-in-cheek in a way that contradicted how the movie wanted to be taken seriously. Doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to me.

Animation: Quality as ever—the underwater scenes are a particular highlight here. I think it’s outdone by Soul, in particular, but it’s not bad. This movie marks the first in a continuing trend where I don’t really like how the human characters are animated, which is a minor nitpick of my own.

Story: This is one of the weakest stories in the entire Pixar canon, and that includes a movie centered on Mater becoming a James Bond-like spy god. How, in the year of our lord 2021, do you screw the pooch this badly, with a story that’s both unexciting and overdone? A lot of these later movies, while not always excellent, have unique stories (when they’re not dogshit sequel bait)—I mean, look at Soul. That’s a beautiful story. Look at Coco or Inside Out or even, turning forward, Turning Red. It feels like Luca was just horribly half-assed compared to a lot of its contemporaries.

Characters: This was pre-AI infiltrating all the bullshit, but it does feel a bit like a ten-year-old needed an essay and asked ChatGPT to write them a story. Stereotype characters that aren’t enjoyable enough to overcome the failings of their typecasting.

Acting: I think the kids do a great job here. No one else really stands out as particularly good, but there aren’t any performances that have me actively wincing.

Music: It’s there!

Final score: 4/10 | Put a dress on a pig, it’s still a pig and now your dress is muddy. What good does that do? This was released one day after my 24th birthday and I really do think I could’ve done without the crappy belated present.

Final notes

Maddy got into this a little bit, but yeah, this one was also released directly to Disney+ except in countries where Disney+ isn’t available, in which case it got a theatrical release. That (and a general lack of hype) led to low box office returns, which in turn led to Pixar refusing to reveal the budget for the film—the first (and still only) time they’d ever done that.

Maybe if she or Leah were writing these, they’d have more to say about this movie in the intro or outro, but Eli is, and he felt nothing watching this movie, so that’s all you get.

Okay, no, hold on. Just looking some more things up right before I hit publish and I found that the director of this movie, Enrico Casarosa (in his directorial debut), worked as “head of story” on The Good Dinosaur, the other brutally boring¹ Pixar film. That explains everything.

Numbers next to each film are each reviewer’s overall rating out of 10.

Next up: Turning Red

1. I’m aware this is my opinion.