Set in a beautiful seaside town on the Italian Riviera, the original animated feature is a coming-of-age story about one young boy experiencing an unforgettable summer filled with gelato, pasta and endless scooter rides. Luca shares these adventures with his newfound best friend, but all the fun is threatened by a deeply-held secret: he is a sea monster from another world just below the water's surface.
Director: Enrico Casarosa
Cast: Jacob Tremblay, Jack Dylan Grazer, Emma Berman, Marco Barricelli, Saverio Raimondo, Maya Rudolph, Jim Gaffigan
Release Date:
Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime
Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Runtime: 1h 36min
Review:
Luca isn't the groundbreaking by Pixar standards which are admittedly sky high. It checks all the boxes of a solid Pixar film by being beautifully animated, emotionally moving while touching on childhood moments that will resonate with nearly everybody. It's story is fairly straightforward, there are light shades of The Little Mermaid, with it's overall theme being fairly simple, so its a film that will be easy for anyone to follow. Antonio, voiced by Jack Dylan Grazer, is very much a Huckleberry Finn type character who's brash and overconfident to a fault. Jacob Tremblay plays Luca with an appropriate level of naivete which evolves over the course of the film as he expands his knowledge and his relationship grows with Giuliana, voiced by the film's secret weapon Emma Berman, and Antonio. Saverio Raimondo is good fun as the local bully who is the sort of the villian of the piece. Its charming throughout with it's colorful vistas that make the film play like an Italian tourist package, there are even nods to Fellini and Miyazaki mixed in for good measure. Director Enrico Casarosa clearly loves his home country and it bleeds through in each of the meticulously crafted shots. After a string of high concept home runs, Luca might feel a little slight by comparison but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable.
B+
