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Pixar’s “Luca,” an Italian-set animated fairy tale concerning two young sea monsters exploring an unknown human world, offers the studio's hallmark visual splendor, yet fails to venture outside of safe waters. After story artist credits on big-time Pixar titles like “ Ratatouille ” and “ Coco ,” “Luca” serves as Enrico Casarosa ’s first time in the director’s chair. Borrowing elements from “ Finding Nemo ” and “ The Little Mermaid ,” Casarosa’s film follows two young Italian sea “monsters,” Luca ( Jacob Tremblay ) and Alberto ( Jack Dylan Grazer ). The former spends his days shepherding the little fish populating his seabed village away from fishing boats. But at night, as he lies awake in his seaweed bed, he dreams of living on the surface.

Looming against his desires are his mother ( Maya Rudolph ) and father’s ( Jim Gaffigan ) fear from living by a human, sea-monster-hunting oceanfront village. Nevertheless, dry world affectations fall to the ocean floor: an alarm clock, a playing card, and a wrench. These items draw Luca closer to the surface. As does Alberto, an older, confident amphibian boy who now lives alone in a crumbling castle tower by the beach, and claims his father is temporarily traveling.

If you’re wondering how these creatures with fins, scales, and tails can could live on among humans without being discovered, writers Jesse Andrews (“ Me and Earl and the Dying Girl ”) and Mike Jones (“ Soul ”) have a tidy solution for that. Rather than an evil witch granting him a human appearance, a la “The Little Mermaid,” the sea monsters here can naturally, magically turn mortal. Their ability isn’t controllable, however, as touching water reverts their skin back to their real scaly exterior. But for Luca, such power dangles greater temptation over him.

Once on dry land, Alberto and Luca form a quick bond. They dream of buying a vespa and traveling the globe together. Their plans nearly come to a halt, however, when Luca’s frightful parents threaten to make him live his oddball Uncle Ugo ( Sacha Baron Cohen , essentially using his Borat voice in a fish) in the trenches. Instead, Luca runs away with Alberto to the town of Portorosso. There, they come across Giulia ( Emma Berman ), a red-headed, independently minded tomboy with dreams of winning the Portorosso cup—a traditional Italian triathlon consisting of swimming, cycling, and eating pasta—and her one-armed, burly father Massimo ( Marco Barricelli ). In a bid to earn enough money to buy a Vespa, the boys pair with Giulia to win the cup away from the evil five-time champion Ercole Visconti ( Saverio Raimondo ) and his goons while an entire town lays a bounty for sea monsters on their heads.

The most distinct current coursing through “Luca” is freedom: that’s certainly what the Vespa represents, the ability to be unrestricted not just by sea, but by land too. The other thread winding around the folklorish narrative, however, is identity, or the people who truly are behind our public faces. The villainous Ercole is initially and seemingly well-loved, as though ripped from an Italian magazine. We soon discover that his love, somewhat like Gaston in “Beauty and the Beast” (another Disney flick attuned to true identities) actually rules through intimidation. The measured eroding of his care-free, buoyant persona into the narrative's real monster is predictable yet satisfying.

The premise of the film also literally disguises Luca and Alberto as humans amongst the fish hunting Portorosso community. But in a deeper sense, many secrets lurk within Alberto, from the whereabouts of his dad to his general knowledge. He portrays himself to Luca as a world-weary traveler, the kind of friend who swears they’ve been to a place a million times, but has only walked past it. He also tells the impressionable Luca how the stars are actually fish swimming in a vast black ocean, that school is unnecessary, and to ignore his “Bruno” (or the tiny scared voice inside your head). His outsized confidence papers over his clear insecurities, especially as Luca first grows closer to Giulia and later thinks for himself.

Similar to Ercole’s unsurprising turn to villainy, Alberto’s bubbling insecurities imbue the film's second half with an air of fait accompli and drag the initial animated delight to the deep depths of boredom. Why do another narrative about a girl stuck in the middle of two best friends? Why cast Giulia’s rich arc, a competitive girl pitched as an outsider, to the back seat? Without exploring her narrative, the primary story flows through the motions. And the ending, meant to recover some of her spark, only serves to tether her importance to the two boys. That is, the guys win, but really, we all win.

“Luca” certainly isn’t without its charms. A visual splendor of blue and orange lighting blankets over the seaside setting, giving the sense that if I were to merely hug the screen it would warm me for days. Minute bits also land, like the fish that make sheep sounds, and the hilarious ways Luca’s mother and father careen through the town trying to find their son, throwing random children in the water. And Dan Rohmer’s propulsive, waltzy score recalls the fairytale vibes he breathed in “ Beasts of the Southern Wild ” on tracks like “ Once There Was A Hushpuppy .” But “Luca” retreads too much well-cultivated ground and reworks so many achingly familiar tropes as its best qualities sink to a murky bottom. While some material may hit with younger audiences, “Luca” makes for Pixar’s least enchanting, least special film yet.

Available on June 18 on Disney+.

Robert Daniels

Robert Daniels is an Associate Editor at RogerEbert.com. Based in Chicago, he is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association (CFCA) and Critics Choice Association (CCA) and regularly contributes to the New York Times , IndieWire , and Screen Daily . He has covered film festivals ranging from Cannes to Sundance to Toronto. He has also written for the Criterion Collection, the Los Angeles Times , and Rolling Stone about Black American pop culture and issues of representation.

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Film credits.

Luca (2021)

Rated PG for rude humor, language, some thematic elements and brief violence.

Jacob Tremblay as Luca Paguro (voice)

Jack Dylan Grazer as Alberto Scorfano (voice)

Emma Berman as Giulia Marcovaldo (voice)

Maya Rudolph as Daniela Paguro (voice)

Jim Gaffigan as Lorenzo Paguro (voice)

Marco Barricelli as Massimo Marcovaldo (voice)

Saverio Raimondo as Ercole Visconti (voice)

Sandy Martin as Grandma Paguro (voice)

Enrico Casarosa
Jesse Andrews

Cinematographer

David Juan Bianchi
Jason Hudak
Catherine Apple

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Pixar's Luca Review

The little merman..

Pixar’s newest film Luca is set in the sunbaked Italian sea town of Portorosso, and in the nearby Mediterranean waters where a shy young sea monster, Luca, lives with his family. Fans of The Little Mermaid might find this premise familiar—Luca’s parents forbid him from going to the surface, due to the threat of local fishermen. But there is one key twist: sea monsters are able to transform into humans once on land. Luca’s world changes when a new sea monster friend, Alberto, pulls him up to the surface, showing him that living as a human can be fun.

Luca is a solid summer watch, and one whose uniquely stylized animation will be particularly enjoyable on a large screen. It’s a nice paring back from some of Pixar’s more ostentatious, serious films like Soul or Inside Out , which took on high-minded concepts like “what is the meaning of life” or “how do we feel things.” But Luca doesn’t quite stand up to Pixar’s stellar reputation for making smaller themes feel consequential through striking characterization and storytelling. Its themes of coming-of-age resemble too much of Pixar’s existing catalog—and without a narrative that really makes these themes feel fresh.

There’s simplicity and clarity to the smallness of Luca’s world, one that matches the film’s story of friendship and exploration as a means of coming-of-age. This really comes through in the film’s world-building details, which give it a charming, local, and lived in feel both undersea and on land. At home, Luca scythes seaweed—which reads like harvesting fields of wheat—and herds bleating fish, establishing him as part of a rural, farming family. Portorosso is similarly charming, drawn from director Enrico Casarosa’s own time spent in the Italian Riviera. The town’s piazza bustles with children playing soccer, men toting harpoons from their boats, and women gossiping over ice cream.

The Visual Development of Pixar's Luca

Annually, the town hosts the Portorosso Cup, a kind of triathlon (with a funny twist), which Luca and Alberto set their eyes on—the prize money would buy them a Vespa, which they see as a ticket to freedom. But Portorosso is also famous for hunting sea monsters and any time the boys are exposed to water—including small things like spilling a glass—they transform into their sea creature selves, and risk getting caught.

Though this premise offers lots of space for laughter, Luca and Alberto’s backstories are too thinly drawn for viewers to really emotionally invest in their friendship. These backstories are essential parts of any Pixar film, and without them Luca lacks a kind of deeper emotional core. So much of Up’s narrative propulsion, for example, comes from its moving opening sequence, which details the main character meeting the love of his life, and the desire to honor her memory after she dies. Marlon’s anxieties in Finding Nemo stay constant across the film, conveying just how much he must love his son in order to leave his anemone and chase him down. And, of course, Coco’s “Remember Me” is an instant tearjerker, a testament to just how affecting the film is.

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By contrast, Alberto’s genuinely affecting origin story is also withheld until close to the end of the film. His friendship with Luca is built quickly over inside jokes, Vespa building montages, and a kind of admiration familiar to anyone who has envied a best friend. But their relationship never quite feels intimate or lived in, thanks to withholding that vulnerability. (And while Pixar fans speculated Luca might be a queer film, Casarosa stated the film’s core friendship is purely platonic ). Luca’s parents also feel dramatically overbearing when they forbid Luca to go to the surface—while the film shows the region’s threat to sea monsters, it doesn’t give Luca’s family much personal connection to that threat.

Luca’s animation style does offer a compelling argument for watching it in theaters. Casarosa’s style is distinctly warm, moving towards a more painterly feel. In Luca, Pixar’s typically photoreal techniques for environment design are swapped out for more sculptural visions of the ocean, sunsets, and rolling hills. The studio tends to create visual awe through moments of bombast—think of Coco’s incredible visual richness. Luca captures the beauty of leaving home by paring down detail, in favor of punchy framing and lighting, pulling off a kind of awe as Luca leaves the sea for the first time, gazes at the stars, or watches the sun rise.

Where environment designs trend toward the serene, Casarosa’s character designs echo the more exaggerated comedic shapes you might see in Saturday morning cartoons. This gives the film a richer comedic language to work with. Some of the character designs are particularly delightful—Luca and Alberto’s human friend Giulietta has wonderfully triangular hair that reflects the exaggerated bell bottom flare of her jeans. Her dad is designed as an intimidatingly huge, square figure. The transformation between sea monster and human is similarly primed for comedy—with Luca and Alberto scrambling to hide each other any time they’ve touched water.

The film’s visual language also has some clear influences. Hayao Miyazaki-esque dream sequences are visually striking, and surprisingly recognizable despite the film being animated in 3d. Luca imagines himself in flight with Alberto, soaring through the sky on a Vespa in sequences that are reminiscent of Casarosa’s beautiful short film La Luna. They also bring to mind Miyazaki’s Porco Rosso, a film whose title is close to the name of Luca’s Portorosso.

While pretty, these sequences are often more style than substance—especially when reflecting on Miyazaki’s usage. When Jiro Horikoshi dreams he is flying in The Wind Rises, for example, the sequence is emotionally affecting, because this man’s lifelong dream of building airplanes was achieved in the context of designing fighter planes for World War II. This isn’t to say Luca needs to be so hefty—the comparison to Miyazaki is obviously a lofty one, and Luca is a sweet summer film about self-discovery—but it does point to why Luca’s story doesn’t quite land.

Pixar is known for masterfully making smaller tensions take on broader narrative stakes. These can be goofy and still work, like Mike Wazowski and Sully risking both their health and jobs, as they hide little girl Boo, as well as risking upending the entire monster scare economy. Luca, instead, relies on well-worn coming-of-age tropes—overbearing parents, extroverted best friends—without building realistic intimacy, or explaining how Luca and Alberto fit into the broader sea monster community.

Though Luca and Alberto leave their home undersea, their story ultimately remains on the shallow end.

Director Enrico Casarosa’s debut feature-length Pixar film Luca is an enjoyable, sun-drenched summer flick about adolescence and independence. Its serene animation style defies Pixar’s typical photorealistic approach, with a few particularly striking sequences inspired by Hayao Miyazaki. But Luca is ultimately hamstrung by a lack of depth in its storytelling, and its character development, keep it from standing up to Pixar’s stellar storytelling reputation.

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‘Luca’ Review: Calamari by Your Name

Pixar takes a trip to the Italian coast in this breezy, charming sea-monster story.

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By A.O. Scott

A lot of movies can be described as fish-out-of-water stories, but few quite as literally as “Luca.” The title character, voiced by Jacob Tremblay, is an aquatic creature who lives with his family off the Mediterranean coast of Italy. The undersea equivalent of a shepherd, tending an amusing flock of sheeplike fish, Luca has a natural curiosity that is piqued by his mother’s warnings about the dangers that await on dry land.

Like many a Disney protagonist before him — Ariel, Nemo and Moana all come to mind — he defies parental authority in the name of adventure. (His mom and dad are voiced, in perfect sitcom disharmony, by Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan.) According to the film’s fantastical version of marine biology, sea monsters turn human on terra firma, though their fins and gills re-emerge quickly on contact with water. Luca is a bit like a mermaid and a little like Pinocchio, a being with folkloric roots and a modern pop-culture-friendly personality.

On a rocky island near his home, he meets Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer), a fellow changeling and a wild, parentless Huck Finn to Luca’s more cautious Tom Sawyer. After a season of idyllic, reckless antics, mostly spent building scooters out of scraps and wrecking them in the surf, the friends make their way to a nearby Ligurian fishing village, where more serious peril — and more complicated fun — awaits.

“Luca” was directed by Enrico Casarosa, whose warm, whimsical aesthetic also infused “La Luna” (2012), his Oscar-nominated short . Unlike some other recent Pixar features, this one aims to be charming rather than mind-blowing. Instead of philosophical and cinematic ambition, there is a diverting, somewhat familiar story about friendship, loyalty and competition set against a picturesque animated backdrop.

So not a masterpiece, in other words. But also not a pandering, obnoxious bit of throwaway family entertainment. The visual craft is lovely and subtle — the orange glow of Mediterranean sunsets; the narrow streets and craggy escarpments; the evocations of Italy and Italian movies. If you look closely, you’ll catch a glimpse of Marcello Mastroianni and Giulietta Masina. The friendship between Alberto and Luca, built around the fantasy of owning a Vespa and threatened by a desperate act of betrayal, carries a faint but detectable echo of “Shoeshine,” Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist fable about two Roman street urchins who dream of buying a horse.

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Pixar’s Luca is the perfect summer movie

Sun, swimming, and sea monsters.

By Andrew Webster , an entertainment editor covering streaming, virtual worlds, and every single Pokémon video game. Andrew joined The Verge in 2012, writing over 4,000 stories.

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The best way to watch Luca , the latest feature from Pixar, is when you’re that very particular kind of tired that comes from a long day at the beach. I recommend pulling out a projector so you can watch it outside, preferably as the sun starts to set, and ideally with some gelato to accompany you. What I’m saying is: this is just about the perfect summer movie.

Okay, sorry, so what is Luca actually? At its most basic, it’s a coming-of-age story about sea creatures, directed by Enrico Casarosa (who previously directed Pixar’s 2011 short La Luna ). Luca (Jacob Tremblay) is a young monster who lives a sheltered life on a family farm under the sea, largely oblivious to the human world above him. Most of what he knows comes from his parents, who tell him that the “land monsters” are “here to do murders.” Still, despite — or perhaps because of — this sense of danger, he’s fascinated by the human world.

He collects random objects, like playing cards and alarm clocks, and dreams about what the world outside of the ocean is like. (He’d make fast friends with Ariel.) Then one day, he meets another young monster named Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer) who happens to live on the land. Luca’s budding obsession with the human world reaches its zenith when he spots a poster on Alberto’s wall that reads simply: “Vespa is freedom.” The two decide right then and there that they have to have a Vespa.

The big twist in Luca is that the sea monsters change into a human form when they’re out of the water. So Luca and Alberto are able to pretend to be human when they visit a nearby Italian seaside village in search of the scooter of their dreams. Eventually, they come up with a plan: with the help of a new human friend named Giulia they enter into a triathlon so that they can use the prize money to buy a Vespa. (In case you forgot the film takes place in Italy, one of the triathlon events is dedicated to eating pasta.)

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Luca review: Pixar film is a sweet Italian passport

Luca (streaming on Disney+ today) is small-fry Pixar, a sunny Mediterranean trifle set in a postcard Italian village by the sea. But it's a winning one, too: the tenderhearted tale of a blue-gilled fish-boy who dreams of dry land, and all the things that human boys there get to do. (Ride Vespas, eat gelato, go to school.)

All his young life, Luca (voiced by Good Boys ' Jacob Tremblay ) has been taught by his wary parents (Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan) to fear the tail-less, two-legged beasts who live above the surface. But curiosity keeps pulling him toward the shore — and a bold fellow fish-boy named Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer) gladly drags him the rest of the way. Alberto is a classic Huck Finn type, a freckled swashbuckler and cheerful fount of misinformation. (What are those twinkling lights in the sky? Anchovies! How does gravity work? Walk off that cliff and find out!)

Both boys are entranced by motorbike ads torn from magazines, and soon their attempts to build their own lead them into the nearest town, where the preening local bully (Giacomo Gianniotti) scoffs at their desire to win the annual Portorosso Cup — an extremely Italian triathlon involving a swim race, a pasta-eating contest, and a bicycle route. But the pair find at least a temporary home when a scrappy little girl named Giulia (Emma Berman), who lives nearby with her kindly fisherman father, takes them both in as de facto foster brothers and fellow teammates in the race.

While the boys happily plunge into their new lives above the waterline, they also have to caution against getting wet: Every passing rainstorm or backsplash from a boat means exposing their true fishy nature to the townspeople — including Giulia's boulder-sized dad — who have learned to fear and loathe the sea monsters they've always suspected are lurking offshore, even if they've never found conclusive proof.

Luca's parents, too, won't let their son go lightly; they'll take human form to find him if they have to, and their plan is to send him down to the safety of his uncle (a great, way-too-brief Sacha Baron Cohen cameo) in the deepest trenches of the ocean, where's there's nothing to do but passively inhale whale carcass all day. If they can catch up to him before the race, there will be no Vespa, no land friends, no more learning about astronomy and cats and pesto.

That's truly about all there is to the plot, but Italian-born director Enrico Casarosa, a longtime staffer at Pixar, infuses every frame with a pure kind of love for his home country (he's pretty much the best tourism-board proxy since Luca Guadagnino exported Call Me By Your Name ). The story's bright swirl of Pixar pixie dust, jangle soundtrack, and gentle lessons on accepting otherness and learning to move past fear feel like a temporary passport: a sweetly soulful all-ages dip in la dolce vita. Grade: B+

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Pixar’s ‘luca’: film review.

An amphibious young sea creature spends a memorable summer on land in an Italian Riviera village in this coming-of-age story about friendship and acceptance, streaming on Disney+.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

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Italian animator Enrico Casarosa, who was nominated for an Oscar for his 2011 Pixar short film La Luna , incorporates his enchantment with the moon and stars in different ways in his first feature, Luca . This captivating coming-of-age tale of a young male sea creature curious about life on dry land shares plot foundations with The Little Mermaid , Splash and Studio Ghibli’s Ponyo . But its Mediterranean flavor and disarming lessons about the value of friendship and acceptance provide fresh charms, while the breathtaking beauty of the film’s environments both underwater and above the surface brings additional rewards. It’s not canonical Pixar, but it’s as sweet and satisfying as artisanal gelato on a summer afternoon.

Full credits

Production company: Pixar Animation Studios Distribution: Disney+ Cast: Jacob Tremblay, Jack Dylan Grazer, Emma Berman, Saverio Raimondo, Maya Rudolph, Marco Barricelli, Jim Gaffigan, Peter Sohn, Lorenzo Crisci, Marina Massironi, Sandy Martin, Sacha Baron Cohen Director: Enrico Casarosa Screenwriters: Jesse Andrews, Mike Jones; story by Enrico Casarosa, Jesse Andrews, Simon Stephenson Producer: Andrea Warren Executive producers: Pete Docter, Peter Sohn, Kiri Hart Directors of photography: David Juan Bianchi, Kim White Production designer: Daniela Strijleva Music: Dan Romer Editors: Catherine Apple, Jason Hudak Sound designer: Christopher Scarabosio Visual effects supervisor: David Ryu Animation supervisor: Michael Venturini Character supervisors: Beth Albright, Sajan Skaria Casting: Kevin Reher, Natalie Lyon

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Pixar’s Luca Is a Literal Fish-Out-of-Water Fantasy Intent on Saying Something

Portorosso, the fictional setting of the new Pixar movie, Luca, is a bright daydream of Italy. Cobblestoned streets wind their way up hills; residents pepper their speech with ejaculations like “ Santa Mozzarella! ”; and each year the kids compete in a triathlon of swimming, cycling, and pasta eating. The pastoral charm doesn’t stop at the shoreline. Underwater, sea monsters live in a community that’s just as quaint, herding sheeplike fish and cultivating rows of kelp. They keep out of sight of the “land monsters,” who have an alarming habit of hoisting harpoons and decorating their plaza with images of fishermen defeating oceanic menaces. But how could anything dark happen in an animated world so mild?

When Luca (Jacob Tremblay), the movie’s young sea-monster protagonist, first gets yanked out onto the sand by his friend Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer), the moment thrums only with a sense of undefinable possibility. Alberto looks on, unimpressed, while Luca sputters and gasps and transforms into a human boy as the water dries off his body. “First time?” Alberto asks. “Of course it is!” Luca retorts. “I’m a good kid!”

When Luca — which was directed by Enrico Casarosa (of the short La Luna ) and written by Jesse Andrews and Mike Jones — was announced, the internet was quick to call out parallels between this film and Call Me by Your Name. Although no one would expect to get anything like the peach scene in a PG-rated Pixar movie, Luca does seem to deliberately invite comparison with director Luca Guadagnino’s romance, right down to a protagonist who shares his first name. Like Call Me by Your Name, Luca is the story of two boys taking a journey into the intoxicatingly forbidden during a summer in Northern Italy. It also involves a lot of frolicking around in shorts, riding scooters, and expressing jealousy when one of the pair starts spending more time with Giulia (Emma Berman), the spunky local girl Alberto and Luca join up with for the big race. That those boys happen to be sea monsters who revert to their scaly form whenever they touch liquid doesn’t discount the undercurrents.

Luca is not, ultimately, a love story. But it is a story that’s explicitly about otherness and self-discovery. The symbolism lends itself to interpretations of queerness, or as an allegory of assimilation. Alberto and Luca run away to live in Portorosso after Luca’s loving but overprotective parents (Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan) attempt to send him to live with his deep-sea-dwelling Uncle Ugo (Sacha Baron Cohen). The kids have to pass in a community they expect would react with hostility if they were ever perceived as they wholly are. Alberto harbors a fantasy of perpetual escape in which he and Luca will use the prize money from the race to buy a Vespa and go on a never-ending road trip, while Luca, to Alberto’s dismay, starts to wonder if there’s a place where he can learn from and live among the humans — even though there are some, like town bully Ercole Visconti (Saverio Raimondo), who wear their intolerance proudly. “What happens when she sees you? When anyone sees you?” Alberto demands when Luca starts talking about following Giulia to school.

Luca is so intent on meaning something that it only ever halfway inhabits the delightfully colorful world it lays out. We never get a deeper understanding of the history between the sea monsters and the humans beyond some hints that there has been far more interaction than Luca was raised to believe. We never find out why Luca’s mother thinks the world is so dangerous; the narrative just needs her to be paranoid, and so she is. Alberto’s wayward dad remains an offscreen squiggle, a means of bolstering the surrogate-parent relationship Alberto begins to develop with Giulia’s father, a stern but kind fisherman whose bushy eyebrows are identical to his bushy mustache. Luca falls in love with astronomy after Giulia shows him the heavens through a telescope, but his burgeoning desire to study exists in contrast to nothing in particular, because there’s no sense of what future would have been available to him had he stayed underwater.

One of the side effects of children’s films becoming more progressive, aware, and careful is that they can lose some of the dimensionality they had before, when they were awash with subtext that didn’t always feel coherent or intended. Luca collects artifacts from the world above — much like a certain Disney mermaid with whom he shares a corporate umbrella — while never encountering anyone as defiantly memorable as Ursula, a villain based on the drag queen Divine. The film would rather evoke Guadagnino and Hayao Miyazaki, especially the latter’s Porco Rosso ; the 1992 movie is an obvious touch point. But Luca doesn’t have the lived-in texture of a Studio Ghibli production, either, that palpable sense of a universe extending beyond each animated frame. What it does have are some groovy Italian pop songs and a setting as pleasant as a summer afternoon. The light glimmers off the surface of the ocean without any worry of going too deep.

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Luca Reviews

Director Enrico Casarosa and his team do a magnificent job of bringing small-town Italy to life, interspersed with a coming-of-age fantasy saga.

Full Review | Jul 18, 2024

The animation is painfully generic and even forgettable since its narrative is almost too insignificant.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 18, 2024

In the end, LUCA is lovely, but slight, and has the potential for so much more. Visually it is gorgeous beyond belief, and... evokes the spiritual transcendence of Studio Ghibli. It doesn’t strive for much more than that, and sometimes that’s fine.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 14, 2024

Although this is a Pixar film it is not a Pixar film.

Full Review | Aug 22, 2023

It was a small, sweet and enjoyable effort from Pixar, which has not only taught us that it's okay to be different from the rest but the importance of it.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 6, 2023

Different than anything PIXAR has done before story wise. Small in scale as A coming of age story that brings the messages of discovery & acceptance!

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

From the detailed animation that makes the Italian coast look realistically astonishing to Dan Romer's rich score that hits all the right notes, without forgetting the outstanding voice work, every Pixar's trademark technical attribute is present.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jul 25, 2023

Pixar made another movie about friendship. But it’s also so much more than that: It’s about how to love life, how to ignore what other people might think of you, and how to accept each other regardless of what or who we really are.

Full Review | Jul 21, 2023

Even with Luca’s dynamic premise and grand visual splendor, it is not special. Perhaps Pixar’s magic is dimming slowly.

Full Review | Jul 20, 2023

It's beautiful seeing two kids just be authentically themselves and have fun with each other...

Full Review | Jul 19, 2023

Luca will be utterly endearing for kids but may be a bit hit and miss for everyone else.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jan 16, 2023

Luca is a charming film with a more relaxed Pixar style that’s made for the dreamers in all of us.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 9, 2022

Luca is Pixar at its most emotionally powerful, returning to the resonant storytelling that made the studio such a success to begin with and displaying some of its most arresting animation to date.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 1, 2022

Luca conveys the feeling of that who goes to school for the first time and those who see that human-in-the-making going to school for the first time. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jul 26, 2022

"Luca" is pure joy. It's lighter than most Pixar movies, but it's bursting with energy and life. "Luca" will have you smiling from ear to ear.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | May 20, 2022

LUCA may not have the wow factor of other Pixar films, but in its smaller, lighthearted story it is still so pure and loving that the emotions are really big again in the end.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Apr 8, 2022

A light, enjoyable movie that would look much better coming from any other studio. However, with the weight of history that comes with the Pixar name, many will be expecting more.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 2, 2022

It is a film that is both incredibly charming yet venomous in its emotions that can sneak up on the audience with their power and presence.

Full Review | Feb 22, 2022

Luca is an absolutely charming animated feature that takes audiences to an unforgettably touching trip to Italy.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Feb 16, 2022

Read on surfaces alone, Luca presents a familiar coming-of-age fable about friendship, albeit impeccably animated and confidently told.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 12, 2022

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Luca review: Pixar’s Riviera dream is a beautiful evocation of youthful possibility

The animation is a gorgeous, tender-hearted paean to childhood summers spent with sunburnt noses and callused fingers, article bookmarked.

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Dir: Enrico Casarosa. Starring: Jacob Tremblay, Jack Dylan Grazer, Emma Berman, Marco Barricelli, Saverio Raimondo, Maya Rudolph, Jim Gaffigan. Cert PG, 96 mins

Pixar has, since its inception, always been embroiled in a game of one-upmanship with itself. No concept – not death, depression, nor our fundamental sense of purpose – can be too weighty to render in bright colours, moon-eyed cartoon characters, and whimsical microcosms trapped between the planes of reality and imagination. The studio’s latest, Luca , feels like an exception to those rules.

It never asks any tortuous questions of its audience. You don’t have to imagine what you’d tell a dead loved one if you had the chance to see them one last time (a la Onward ). You’re not made to think about what it’s like when you look around and realise you’ve outgrown the life you’ve built for yourself (looking at you, Toy Story 4 ). It is rigorously unphilosophical in a way that proves to be its greatest strength.

Luca is a gorgeous, tender-hearted paean to childhood summers spent with sunburnt noses and calloused fingers, and to the friendships that have helped us discover who we are. At its heart are two boys, Luca (Jacob Tremblay) and Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer) – young sea monsters, to be precise – who live off the coast of the Italian Riviera at some point in the middle of the last century. Those on the land have hunted those in the sea for generations. It’s too dangerous to breach the surface, or so Luca’s parents (Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan) say.

Their son prides himself on being an obedient child, so he collects his dinglehoppers, mopes around with his flock of fishy pets, and dreams of being where the people are. Then, Alberto appears – the plucky one, who says “Silenzio, Bruno” to his all his fears. It’s one of the many cobbled-together Italian phrases that he repeats without much care for the meaning. Together, the boys explore all the small joys of human existence. Director Enrico Casarosa, whose previous work includes the Oscar-nominated short La Luna , drew heavily from his own youth spent in Genoa, where he became close friends with an Alberto, who was just as rebellious as his onscreen counterpart.

There’s a tactile quality to it all that feels vaguely reminiscent of claymation

His film is refracted through those golden memories – of cobbled streets, green hills, chiselled cliffs, cold gelato, old Vespas, and plates full of trenette al pesto. Even the animation style feels more deliberately childlike than usual. The edges are softer, while the palette is vibrant and relatively simple. There’s even a tactile quality to it all that feels vaguely reminiscent of claymation, particularly Claude Barras’s 2016 film My Life as a Courgette , which similarly grounds its story in a child’s point of view.

Luca discovers that sea monsters can adopt human guises whenever they leave the water – in shimmering transformations that are technically complex to animate but look as natural and effortless as can be. It’s in the nearby town of Portorosso that they meet Giulia (Emma Berman, the newcomer in this universally bright and brilliant cast), who’s eager to curb the ego of local snob Ercole (Saverio Raimondo) by winning the town’s yearly triathlon. Ercole hasn’t taken kindly to Luca and Alberto, two outsiders he views only as “vagrants”.

The screenplay, by Jesse Andrews and Mike Jones, serves as a kind of all-purpose allegory, where audiences are free to narrow in on its queer subtext, its rebuke of xenophobia, or its triumph against any facet of small-mindedness. What’s important is the way the film gently unpacks how prejudice fortifies itself when it spreads unquestioned across generations. The pleasure of Luca lies less in its intellectual takeaways, than in the profound sensations that it stirs up. It’s a beautiful evocation of youthful possibility – of the sun beating down, the wind in your hair, and a road in front of you that feels as if it may never reach its end.

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‘Luca’ Review: Pixar’s Refreshing Summer Treat Channels the Spirit of Studio Ghibli

David ehrlich.

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The shortest Pixar movie since “Toy Story,” and one of the few that manages to keep its high-concept premise anchored to a simple human scale, Enrico Casarosa’s “ Luca ” is effectively the Disney+ equivalent (read: non-alcoholic version) of an aperol spritz on a late summer afternoon: sweet, effervescent, and all the more satisfying for its simplicity. At times, “Luca” is so modest, so restrained, so not about sentient action figures or a family of superheroes or the nature of the human soul that it almost doesn’t feel like a Pixar film at all.

This is a Pixar thing to the very last gill, of course, and easily recognized as such; the rounded character design is a dead giveaway even before you get to the paranoid (yet lovingly aloof!) parents and the unbridled joy of discovery. And yet, Casarosa’s feature debut — a modest and personal coming-of-age story about two pre-adolescent fish boys eating pasta and obsessing over a Vespa together during that last perfect moment of childhood — seems to have less in common with the studio’s previous movies than it does the whimsical shorts that often play before them (including Casarosa’s own “La Luna”).

This is the kind of project that Pixar would have been able to produce at any time in its history if not for the pressure of grossing several billion dollars, winning a handful of Oscars, and waging a bloody civil war against the Minions for control of our kids’ imagination. It’s no coincidence, then, that “Luca” is also the closest that Pixar has ever come to capturing the ineffable spirit of a Studio Ghibli film (and not just because Casarosa’s semi-autobiographical tale is set in the seaside Italian town of “Portorosso”). It’s a sorbetto-light homage that reflects Pixar’s own self-confidence, and hopefully anticipates how the monolithic animation house will continue to create more intimate fare now that it can use Disney+ as a safety net.

The first way that “Luca” differentiates itself from the rest of the Pixar canon is with music. The staccato punctuation of Dan Romer’s score immediately distances this from anything the studio has made before (despite a familiar underwater setting). The “Beasts of the Southern Wild” composer summons his signature tremble and swell to set the stage for a movie that eschews the vast adventure of “Finding Nemo” for something more in-the-moment and driven by the capriciousness of youth.

Which isn’t to suggest that Luca Paguro — endearingly voiced by Jacob Tremblay — is a radical change of pace from the typical protagonist of an animated film, because he’s not. A timid but kind-natured kid with big ambitions and overprotective parents, Luca would be impossible to distinguish from the other examples of his archetype if not for the fact that he’s a 13-year-old sea monster who looks like a cross between the creature from “The Shape of Water” and a bar mitzvah. (Imagine a humanoid tadpole with a briny Jew-fro and you’ll be on the right track.)

Luca’s aquatic community is deeply under-realized — an errant mention of a neighboring family is what passes for world-building — but we’re made to understand that his kind have always lived in fear of the “land monsters” on the surface. As Luca’s goofily absent-minded father (Jim Gaffigan) puts it after he spots the underside of a fishing boat: “They’re here to do murders.” He’s not wrong. Luca’s mom ( Maya Rudolph , deservedly the go-to choice for such parts these days) concurs that “the curious fish gets caught,” though she’s a lot more pointed with her fear-mongering. Only Luca’s salty grandma (Sandy Martin), who’s fresh out of shucks to give, seems to recognize the inevitability that he’ll disobey his parents and see what’s happening topside.

And that’s exactly what happens after a chance encounter with a parentless and free-spirited sea monster named Alberto ( Jack Dylan Grazer , channeling just enough of the untamed energy he brought to “We Are Who We Are”), who drags Luca to shore in order to share the mind-blowing secret that his family has been keeping from him all this time: When sea monsters are dry, they turn into humans. Just like that, Luca’s tiny world expands toward infinity and beyond. He and Alberto are now free to read textbooks, eat spaghetti by the handful, and even compete against the narcissistic local bully Ercole Visconti (Italian comedian Saverio Raimondo, going full Waluigi) in the annual Portorosso Cup triathlon. Win the race, and the fish chums will be able to afford “the greatest thing that humans have ever made” and the magic key that unlocks the world beyond their imaginations: A busted old Vespa. Whatever it takes for Luca to avoid being sent to live in the deep with his demented uncle, a translucent anglerfish who Sacha Baron Cohen turns into one of Pixar’s funniest characters in less than two minutes of screen time.

This might all sound like the recipe for a typical fable about fear of the other, complete with sharp-tipped harpoons and hordes of frightened people chanting “kill the monster!,” but Jesse Andrews and Mike Jones’ lean script is far more interested in freeing its characters from a fear of themselves. While the people of Portorosso have inherited a Loch Ness-like belief in the local sea myths from their parents, and Luca and Alberto spend much of the movie trying to avoid even the tiniest splash of water (lest their skin reveal its scales in a beautifully chameleonic display of digital alchemy), “Luca” never suggests that it’s building toward the mob blood-thirst of “Beauty and the Beast” or the ecological warfare of “Princess Mononoke.”

On the contrary, the greatest threat to Luca’s freedom is the voice in his head telling him to shrink back and stay in his tiny pocket of the ocean, and the film’s most violent moment is a betrayal among friends who need different things from each other. Alberto wants an anchor, while Luca is desperate for someone to push him out to sea. Neither of the male leads are especially nuanced characters, but there’s a tender friction in how these boys mine strength from their mutual fears; probably tender enough for people to see the film as a broad metaphor for queer self-acceptance if they so choose (the “Call Me by Your Name” of it all is well-pronounced even before Alberto defends Luca’s fishy musk with a defiant “my friend smells amazing !”).

Of course, Luca and Alberto’s damp adventure on dry land is bound together by their shared friendship with the fieriest girl in Portorosso, Giulia Marcovaldo (newcomer Emma Berman). The only daughter of the town’s gruffest one-armed monster hunter, Giulia is a fun-loving epitome of Casarosa’s efforts to synthesize the suffocating perfection of a Pixar script with the self-possessed zeal of a Fellini heroine (particularly the ones played by her namesake Giulietta Masina). In a way, her unbridled lust for life helps liberate this movie from the airlessness of Pixar’s vaunted — almost clinical — approach to storytelling, and allows “Luca” to retain a rare whiff of lived experience amidst its mid-century idyll. If the film is still a bit hectic down the home stretch, prone to a smattering of didactic moments, and incapable of rescuing Luca’s parents from getting trapped inside a (funny) sitcom B-plot, those are small prices to pay for the rare Pixar movie that doesn’t feel like it’s been thought to death. That still leaves room for the endless possibility of a bright summer day with your best friends.

It’s no coincidence then that Giulia’s flailing energy is a great showcase for the film’s tactile approach to computer animation. Less flawless and plasticky than most CG kids fare, “Luca” gently affects the look of stop-motion puppetry whenever the characters are on land, and lends the salmon buildings and cobblestone streets of Portorosso such a visceral sense of place that you can almost feel the breeze coming off… the Mediterranean? The Adriatic? It’s unclear. Either way, you can feel it.

Not to get too “you could even say the town is like a character unto itself” about this, but the setting — so vividly plucked from Casarosa’s own childhood memories — is the secret ingredient of a movie that’s less concerned about what happens than it is about the magical possibility that anything might. The flavor in the air that one summer when everything changed. The first taste of the fullness that life has to offer. The ephemeral friendships that felt like they were going to last forever, and may have found a way to do just that. “The universe is literally yours,” Giulia tells Luca, and you can’t help but take her at her word.

“Luca” may not pack the melodramatic punch of “When Marnie Was There” or offer a whisper of the heart that’s as powerful as that in “From Up on Poppy Hill,” but it’s buoyed by the same frizzante sense of personal freedom that informs even those second-rate Studio Ghibli films. It may not be the best Pixar movie, or the riskiest — it sure as hell isn’t the most ambitious — but “Luca” is also one of the precious few that feels like it isn’t afraid to be something else.

“Luca” will be available to stream on Disney+ starting Friday, June 18.

Luca First Reviews: Decidedly Small-Scale Pixar, but a Triumph Nonetheless

Critics say pixar's latest plays it safer than usual, but it still boasts the spectacular visuals, moving story, and important themes we've come to expect..

TAGGED AS: Disney , Disney Plus , Film , films , movies , Pixar

Pixar is such a quality brand that even its “lesser” products prove to be essential for fans of their animated output. The studio’s latest feature, Luca , is arguably on that lower tier, according to critics — not among Pixar’s best but still better than most alternatives — hence the high Tomatometer score we’ve come to expect, even if there isn’t quite as much of the excitement we usually find in the reviews themselves. Some critics think that it’s too basic, while others believe its lack of complexity is a good thing. And some critics trust that there’s more to the movie than what’s on the surface and it requires repeat viewings to properly appreciate it. Fortunately for anyone hoping to find out, Luca can be watched over and over on Disney+ starting this Friday, June 18.

Here’s what critics are saying about Pixar’s Luca :

How does it compare to other Pixar movies?

Luca leans far lighter in tone and effect, but it’s no less memorable. – Rob Hunter, Film School Rejects

Luca is easily Pixar’s most intimate and laidback effort since Ratatouille. – Keith Watson, Slant Magazine

The last fifteen minutes of Luca might go down as one of the best endings Pixar has ever produced. – Ryan McQuade, Awards Watch

This might be Pixar’s most childlike and cartoony offering. – Brian Roan, The Film Stage

More of The Good Dinosaur or Onward level for me, Luca doesn’t quite reach the potential that I have grown to expect from Pixar. – Christie Cronan, Raising Whasians

While some material may hit with younger audiences, Luca makes for Pixar’s least enchanting, least special film yet. – Robert Daniels, RogerEbert.com

(Photo by Pixar)

Is it just a simpler Pixar movie than we’re used to?

Luca is nowhere near as complex or deep as other Pixar fare and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. – Doug Jamieson, The Jam Report

All the more satisfying for its simplicity… the rare Pixar movie that doesn’t feel like it’s been thought to death. – David Ehrlich, IndieWire

It is rigorously unphilosophical in a way that proves to be its greatest strength. – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

By going back to basics, we get a real connection with these characters. – Ryan McQuade, Awards Watch

Luca has the look and feel of a more disposable flick, but that’s just on the surface. Beneath, it has the beating heart of a classic family tale in the making. – Joey Magidson, Awards Radar

Luca never quite rises beyond being adorable — and hey, these days, adorable is fine —there’s something that just isn’t there. – Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times

How are the visuals?

The real magic of Luca is its visuals… The richness of the settings in both realms is a constant source of pleasure. – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

Looking like a hand-drawn fairy tale book come to animated life, Luca has a captivating visual style with every detail popping. – Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times

The gorgeous animation of Luca … is unlike other Pixar movies you’ve seen. – Ian Sandwell, Digital Spy

It’s been a while since they’ve done anything visually distinct and felt vastly different from the rest of their fare. Thankfully, Luca is that breath of fresh air. – Rendy Jones, Rendy Reviews

Pixar’s Luca is proof once again that cartoon movies keep getting better and better with the technology. – Christie Cronan, Raising Whasians

(Photo by )

Does it bring on the usual waterworks?

For much of this film, you’ll be thinking Luca will be one of the rare Pixar movies not to make you cry. But… [it] may just leave you in a puddle of tears. – Doug Jamieson, The Jam Report

Yeah, it’s cliched to say “I got misty-eyed in a Pixar movie,” but damn by the way they invest you with the friendship, it’s difficult not to find yourself feeling all warm and fuzzy. – Rendy Jones, Rendy Reviews

Happy tears at how lovely it all is, fortunately, we’re not talking Toy Story 3 or Inside Out trauma here. – Ian Sandwell, Digital Spy

I watched twice and no Inside Out or Up equivalent eye watering… Luca misses the Pixar emotional pull for me. – Christie Cronan, Raising Whasians

Are the characters memorable ?

Giulia’s lovable father Massimo, who instantly goes into the all-time list for best animated dads. – Ian Sandwell, Digital Spy

A translucent anglerfish who Sacha Baron Cohen turns into one of Pixar’s funniest characters in less than two minutes of screen time. – David Ehrlich, IndieWire

As always, the Pixar magicians create a wonderfully populated world: I particularly enjoyed the cat character, who stares fixedly as only cats can. – Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times

How is the screenplay?

With all of its wit and perfectly interwoven story threads and running gags, [the script] bears all the hallmarks of the best of Pixar’s story trust. – Brian Roan, The Film Stage

The script… like all the best Pixar movies, laces touching life lessons and delicate helpings of sentiment into what’s essentially a caper. – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

Why do another narrative about a girl stuck in the middle of two best friends?… The primary story flows through the motions. – Robert Daniels, RogerEbert.com

Unfortunately, there’s also an episodic, shaggy-dog quality to the plotting that undercuts Luca’ s emotional beats. – Keith Watson, Slant Magazine

Are its themes up for interpretation ?

This really is a metaphorical film. The sea monsters could be any of us who feel different. Maybe they’re a metaphor for the LGBTQ community. – Danielle Solzman, Solzy at the Movies

It’s the kind of metaphor that could be applied to a hundred different situations, but there’s an inherently queer subtext bubbling beneath the surface. – Doug Jamieson, The Jam Report

Very relatable for anyone who is within the LGBTQ+ community… [and also] works for a universal audience who may not identify as LGBTQ+ but can relate to someone who is. – Ryan McQuade, Awards Watch

[It] serves as a kind of all-purpose allegory, where audiences are free to narrow in on its queer subtext, its rebuke of xenophobia, or its triumph against any facet of small-mindedness. – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

Its themes of coming-of-age resemble too much of Pixar’s existing catalog — and without a narrative that really makes these themes feel fresh. – Nicole Clark, IGN Movies

It never settles on exactly what it wants to say… It never makes a cohesive, powerful point. – Germain Lussier, io9.com

Who is Luca ultimately for?

While Disney and Pixar’s Luca is fun for the whole family, there are some very important messages for children laced throughout the film. – Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky

Luca is entertainment for all ages as its bright colors and fast-moving action will appeal to the kids while the humor and themes should speak to older viewers. – Rob Hunter, Film School Rejects

While there are a few moments that may be a little tense for younger kids… I recommend Pixar’s Luca for kids as young as 5-6 years old. – Christie Cronan, Raising Whasians

Will it remind us of any other films ?

Luca is the closest that Pixar has ever come to capturing the ineffable spirit of a Studio Ghibli film. – David Ehrlich, IndieWire

The smooth, rounded character designs are something more akin to the stop-motion work of Aardman Animations. – Doug Jamieson, The Jam Report

There are obvious shades of The Little Mermaid in this fairy tale-like story… but Luca plays like a deliberate inversion of that Disney classic. – Keith Watson, Slant Magazine

Luca is The Little Mermaid without the heart, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs without the laughs. – Roger Moore, Movie Nation

Is it rewatchable?

Expect to visit this destination more than once. – Rob Hunter, Film School Rejects

Since it’s so dense and layered, my guess is it’ll only improve, solidify and blossom with multiple viewings… I do want to watch it again. – Germain Lussier, io9.com

It’s also so fabulously summery that you shouldn’t be surprised if you return to it over and over for that sunny feeling. – Deirdre Molumby, entertainment.ie

Will Luca leave us hopeful for Pixar’s future ?

Luca should be the model going forward for Pixar, with character driving entertaining stories instead of big concepts that fail to execute and leave you feeling hollow by the end (looking at you Soul ). – Ryan McQuade, Awards Watch

[It] hopefully anticipates how the monolithic animation house will continue to create more intimate fare now that it can use Disney+ as a safety net. – David Ehrlich, IndieWire

Luca releases in theaters and streams on Disney+ on June 18, 2021.

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Luca (2021)

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Pixar’s new movie Luca is understated brilliance

It’s a sweet coming-of-age story, with sea monsters

by Petrana Radulovic

two sea monsters half submerged in water

Pixar’s newest movie is a fantasy about sea monsters coming onto land, but it’s rooted in authentic childhood memories. Director Enrico Casarosa (who previously made the Pixar short La Luna ) based Luca on his own childhood summers, and the result is a movie that brings in fantastical elements, but also evokes specific emotions tied to coming-of-age stories.

Luca doesn’t explore big, existential emotions like the Pixar films that made the company an industry leader, but it captures the fleeting halcyon days of summer in a sweet, understated way. Casarosa subverts the typical Pixar formula, not just in the movie’s visual stylings , but also in the way he weaves in the emotions, using smaller story moments.

[ Ed. note: This review contains slight spoilers for Luca .]

Luca follows two young sea monsters. The titular Luca (Jacob Tremblay) is curious, yet timid. His burgeoning interest in the human world has been squashed by overprotective parents. Fearless Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer), meanwhile, lives on land and encourages Luca to be more daring. The two run away to a human town, dreaming of buying a Vespa and seeing the world. With a chance to win enough money to buy their prized moped, the two join up with Giulia (Emma Berman), the fishmonger’s daughter, to compete in the annual Portorosso cup, a triathlon where instead of a running leg, competitors eat pasta.

In Luca , the magic is in the tiny details that flesh out the human world. The undersea setting is gorgeous, certainly, but the seaside town of Portorosso is what really shines. Through Luca and Alberto’s eyes, it makes sense that the human setting should be so lovingly augmented. All the little details — the laundry hanging between the streets, the uneven cobblestones, the posters on the walls — create a gorgeous rendition of the real world. It isn’t photorealistic, but it makes the town a little warmer, a little brighter, and a little more golden, almost like a rosy-tinged memory. The stylization bolsters this blissful summer shared by three friends.

Each of the characters has a very distinct design that’s more cartoonish than usual Pixar fare. With exaggerated expressions and movements, all of the characters (not just the kids) have a very deliberate physicality. There is a thought to them that extends to the voice acting, with the clear difference between the more hesitant Tremblay as Luca, who slowly gains confidence, and brash Grazer as Alberto, who gets in touch with his more vulnerable side. Particularly memorable, however, is Giulia’s father, a large stoic man with an impressive mustache (and a cat with similar facial markings), who isn’t particularly forthcoming, but eventually opens his heart up to these two misfit kids.

Luca ’s central plot is pretty straightforward, with the three kids competing in a race, while Luca and Alberto hide their identities. But that just allows the relationships between the characters to take center stage. What starts out as a simple friendship between Luca and Alberto grows into something more complicated when Giulia enters the picture. It isn’t a romantic quandary at all . Instead, Luca plays with the idea that anyone can have different emotionally satisfying relationships with different people, while acknowledging how hard that can be to accept.

Pixar is known for emotional movies, and at first glance, Luca seems like an outlier. It doesn’t operate like Soul or Inside Out , which each build up to a big emotional catharsis. Instead, that overwhelming Pixar emotion is of a different caliber, one that sinks in after the credits roll. The movie’s emotional arc isn’t defined by one or two big moments. Instead, the best bits are actually interspersed between the more archetypical climatic moments. From Luca and Alberto trying gelato for the first time to Luca and Giulia bonding over a telescope, the comparatively ordinary interactions weave together to create an evocative coming-of-age tale.

Luca ’s story is simple, but it works so beautifully. Much as Casarosa pushed the bounds of Pixar’s in-house style, he also played with the storytelling format that the studio has done time after time, to varying degrees of effectiveness. Luca isn’t trying to make people cry, the way some Pixar movies now feel obligated to do, but it still rings as a bittersweet experience. Instead of a tearjerker, it’s a fond memory, a soft sigh after a recollection of a time gone by.

Luca is available on June 18 on Disney Plus for all users.

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"i'm taking it very personally": glen powell reacts to twisters' missing kiss backlash, five years ago, star wars secretly confirmed mace windu didn't fall to the dark side.

Everybody loves Luca - and here's why. When Pixar announced a multi-year drive toward original stories in 2019, they would've expected to draw fresh audiences into movie theaters and potentially generate new franchises to replace classics such as Toy Story and Cars . Unfortunately, COVID-19 has scuppered those plans. Onward was affected by theater closures, while Soul released exclusively on the Disney+ streaming service. Luca has befallen the same fate, its planned June 18, 2021 theatrical release replaced by a streaming roll-out, only showing in theaters where Disney+ isn't available.

Directed by Enrico Casarosa, Luca stars Jacob Tremblay as Luca Paguro and Jack Dylan Grazer as Alberto Scorfano - two sea monsters who adopt a human form whenever on dry land. Despite visiting the surface world being strictly forbidden (where have we heard that one before?), Luca and Alberto go exploring on the Italian Riviera, leading to a magical clash of cultures and a typically emotive coming-of-age story drenched in Pixar's trademark top-notch animation.

Related: Everything We Know About Pixar's Lightyear Movie

After Onward 's mixed reception , Pixar bounced back strongly with Soul , which attracted widespread acclaim even without a theatrical release. The studio will naturally be looking to continue that momentum with Luca , and early signs suggest they've done just that, with reviews for Pixar's latest offering skewing toward the positive. Currently sitting pretty with 91% on Rotten Tomatoes (at the time of writing), here's a sample of what the critics are saying about Luca .

Screen Rant :

While there are certain aspects of the film’s story that could have been expanded upon and a somewhat frustrating antagonist in Ercole Visconti (Saverio Raimondo), who is much older than the core trio to be as petty as he is about a competition, Luca is a wonderful coming of age story with a nice message that balances deep emotions and a lot of adventurous fun.

Independent :

The pleasure of Luca lies less in its intellectual takeaways, than in the profound sensations that it stirs up. It’s a beautiful evocation of youthful possibility – of the sun beating down, the wind in your hair, and a road in front of you that feels as if it may never reach its end.

It’s particularly impressive that “Luca” operates so well on multiple levels. For children, this is a story about friendship and being true to yourself and coping with parents who are afraid to send you out into the world. For adults, it’s all that and much more; for LGBTQ+ audiences, in particular, the film offers a powerful metaphor about the closet.

Its Mediterranean flavor and disarming lessons about the value of friendship and acceptance provide fresh charms, while the breathtaking beauty of the film’s environments both underwater and above the surface brings additional rewards. It’s not canonical Pixar, but it’s as sweet and satisfying as artisanal gelato on a summer afternoon.

Related: How Soul Secretly Sets Up Pixar's Next Movie

Evidently, Pixar's summer reverie holds plenty to enjoy. There's widespread agreement that Luca successfully evokes the breezy memories of a childhood vacation, setting the perfect tone and doing justice to a beautiful setting with typically impressive visuals. Many write-ups also hail how Luca pitches its more complex themes, finding ways to incorporate layers of subtext without coming across as obvious or forced in its moral leanings. Admittedly, few are putting Luca up there with Pixar 's biggest hitters in terms of quality, but there's a general consensus among critics that this coastal breeze of a movie is a welcome addition to the Pixar catalog, with most ratings landing between 3 and 4 stars. With that said, some have been less kind to Luca :

A strange hybrid of Italian neorealism and fish-based fantasy, Luca is beautiful to behold but plays it too safe to make a real impact. Still, great CG linguine.

It’s string-pulling Pixar formula but done with just about enough effectiveness to work... It doesn’t have that emotional kicker of an ending we might expect and hope for, it’s far too slight to evoke an ugly cry, but it’s breezily watchable, low stakes stuff, handsomely animated (on dry land, in water less so).

RogerEbert :

“Luca” retreads too much well-cultivated ground and reworks so many achingly familiar tropes as its best qualities sink to a murky bottom. While some material may hit with younger audiences, “Luca” makes for Pixar’s least enchanting, least special film yet.

To summarize the recurring criticisms, Luca seems to cater less for grown-ups than most of Pixar's output, and there's an overall sense (even in some of the positive reviews) that while enjoyable in the moment, Luca's tale lacks the lasting impact of Toy Story , The Incredibles or Inside Out . Reading between the lines, Luca 's less positive reviews seem to suggest Pixar's usual formula is in need of a shake-up, with Luca occupying distinctly familiar territory. Nevertheless, the sea monster's share of Luca reactions have been full of praise, and Pixar looks to have another hit on its hands - especially with kids wanting something fun to watch during the warm months.

More: Pixar's Soul Made History (But Still Has One Big Racial Issue)

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Luca (2021)

THE MOVIE CULTURE

Luca Movie Review & Summary: A Pleasant Little Tale Of Friendship

Luca is a coming of age Pixar Animated Movie. It revolves around a boy trying to explore the world with his friend Alberto by his side.

Luca Movie Plot

Luca revolves around a sea creature who yearns to explore the world of land after having spent the better part of his childhood in sea. However the creatures on land aren’t particularly fond of these “Sea Monsters”. So when he wanders into this world, he is in for a world of adventure.

Luca Movie Cast

Jacob Tremblay as Luca
Jack Dylan Grazer as Alberto
Emma Berman as Giulia

Luca Movie Review

Luca is all kinds of fun, indeed. While I have been wanting them to really dig into the lore aspects of animation and churn something super original like Coco, Luca is still a worthy contender which tickles your emotions and makes you smile.

As I have said before, Animated movies have sort of fallen into the formulaic aspect of it all, and yes, Luca feels formulaic and the same old story progression or Disney and Pixar movies have been relying upon for all these years, but again, it works and majorly appeals to the audience that it targets (including me), so who am I to say anything. Luca is a world inhabited by Sea Monsters and Humans, so the dynamic of fear is mutual and each one of them is afraid that the other one’s going to hunt them.

Luca (Voiced by Jacob Tremblay) has spent his early childhood beneath the seas and like any other person who has never explored the world, he is curious, enthusiastic and yearning to go into the light of the sun and ride on a Vespa. This yearning for Vespa actually comes from one of the sea scavenger he meets while chasing a gramophone.

Alberto (Voiced by Jack Dylan Grazer) is an experienced land animal, by that I mean, he has no problem going in and out of water anytime he feels like, and he even has a house on a broken tower on the land. So this friendship nurtures as they wander on land in search of adventures and, more importantly, a shining Vespa. A Vespa which could transport them to any part of this world and let them explore each and every nook and corner, without anyone keeping them in a cage.

Luca Movie: Simple Yet Effective

Luca has very booklike animation if that makes any sense, its somewhat detailed but in order to bring the magical beauty out of the seaside of Italian Riviera, it presents the waters and the sun in their most basic and pure forms. The scope for world-building isn’t the priority in this setting and it doesn’t need to go to extreme details in its animation like Coco needed.

With its simplistic story, it prioritizes a friendship and their relationship and the tropical waters of Italy look unbelievably pleasant. They basically transported me into a little vacation of my own, behind my Laptop. I know, that’s just sad. But yeah, the animation is subtle and without trying too many new things, concepts and themes, it elevates the beauty of the world.

The friendship between Luca and Alberto is the main focus of the plot and it’s pretty amazing how both the voice actors do a tremendous job in bringing out the emotions. For Luca, he has always been scared. The whole plot has milestones which he needs to achieve, like getting out of the water, making friends, going into the feared “People Town”.

Alberto on the other hand, is a complete contrast of Luca. He never second guesses anything that he does, no matter how ridiculously wild or dangerous it is. He lets the nature judge the consequences for him. And this heartwarming blend of Caring too much and Not Caring at all, gives birth to this amazing friendship.

Both of them have their own sorrows and as we move ahead we discover certain depths of these protagonists, and they ultimately revolt that flame of an undying friendship. And yes, it makes one emotional to the core, because every good Animated movie has to make you cry now. It has become a rule for the studios, but one thing I can be sure about is that those tears are more often than not, always of Joy.

The world, despite all of it’s beauty does fall a bit shallow perhaps. The characters are nice and the main antagonist, is nothing but a goofy bully who thinks everyone loves him. But leaving that aside, it becomes really Linear and straightforward, especially when the same concept and progression has been repeatedly used in so many movies now. After all these years and all this time of watching these movies, linear progressions are hardly surprising anymore. They don’t make you go, ‘Ha!’ in excitement and giddy optimism and that is also a testament of somewhat weak worldbuilding that movies like Pixar’s Luca, fall prey to.

The climax was a tear jerker but it also felt like the circumstances were forcing it to be one. There were some farewells which felt like they were there just to get the audience a bit more teary eyed. Luca could have had an ending where there aren’t any particular farewells and frankly, I would have been alright with that, but forcing a weird scenario just to separate people isn’t the best way to go about it in my opinion.

Maybe the writers could have crafted a better reason or maybe they should have just left. But coming back to what I said, it isn’t a good animated movie if it doesn’t make you cry.

Luca is gorgeous and the relationship of Luca and Alberto triumphs in this ride. It does nothing new, but for both, the audience which is accustomed to Pixar Movies and the audience whose first animated movie is going to be Luca, there is a lot to like in it for everyone. It’s more than worth it to experience it for the light hearted, sweet natured flick it is, and even when my heart craves for something deeper, I had an absolute blast watching Luca.

Luca Movie Critical Reception

Luca stands at 89% on Rotten Tomatoes with the Consensus being, “Slight but suffused with infectious joy, the beguiling Luca proves Pixar can play it safe while still charming audiences of all ages.” It has a Metascore of 71.

The Movie Culture Synopsis

Luca is Pixar going light and hearty at the same time. It is sure to bring a smile on your face and you witness this heartwarming friendship unfold. It isn’t anything out of the ordinary though, for the better or the worse.

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‘the union’ review: mark wahlberg & halle berry give spy romp chemistry, style and a really great car chase, new york film festival sets luca guadagnino’s ‘queer’ as spotlight gala.

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New York Film Festival Unveils Main Slate

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The film, which will premiere in Venice, is a showcase for many in Guadagnino’s stable of collaborators, including Challengers screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, and composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

“I am so privileged and elated to present a movie of mine for the third time at NYFF, Queer in particular,” said Guadagnino (( I Am Love , A Bigger Splash , Call Me by Your Name , Suspiria , Bones And All , and Challengers) . “It is a very personal movie about the inescapable quest for being recognized in the gaze of another through the lens of the great William Burroughs.”

See NYFF full slate here.

The festival runs September 27–October 14. The Spotlight section, expands the vision of the Main Slate, showcasing a selection of the season’s most anticipated and significant films.

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Pixar Reveals ‘Hoppers,’ a Beaver Body-Swap Movie Starring Jon Hamm, Bobby Moynihan, Piper Curda

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The story follows a young girl, Mabel, who can transfer her mind into a robot beaver with the goal of going undercover in the animal kingdom. She winds up befriending a regal beaver, King George, and uniting the animals to fight off the plans of a real estate developer. The movie is targeted for release in spring 2026.

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Luca movie review & film summary (2021)
Luca. Pixar's "Luca," an Italian-set animated fairy tale concerning two young sea monsters exploring an unknown human world, offers the studio's hallmark visual splendor, yet fails to venture outside of safe waters. After story artist credits on big-time Pixar titles like " Ratatouille " and " Coco ," "Luca" serves as Enrico ...
Luca (2021)
Set in a beautiful seaside town on the Italian Riviera, Disney and Pixar's original feature film "Luca" is a coming-of-age story about one young boy experiencing an unforgettable summer filled ...
Pixar's Luca Review
Director Enrico Casarosa's debut feature-length Pixar film Luca is an enjoyable, sun-drenched summer flick about adolescence and independence. Its serene animation style defies Pixar's typical ...
'Luca' Review: Calamari by Your Name
Pixar takes a trip to the Italian coast in this breezy, charming sea-monster story.
Luca review: the perfect summer movie
Luca is the latest animated feature from Toy Story and Soul studio Pixar. It premieres on the Disney Plus streaming service on June 18th.
Luca review: Pixar film is a sweet Italian passport
'Luca' is small-fry Pixar, a sunny Mediterranean trifle set in a postcard Italian village by the sea. But it's a winning one.
Pixar's 'Luca': Film Review
An amphibious young sea creature spends a memorable summer on land in an Italian Riviera village in this coming-of-age story about friendship and acceptance, streaming on Disney+.
Review: Pixar's Luca Is a Literal Fish-Out-of-Water Fantasy
A review of Pixar and Disney's new animated film "Luca," which follows two sea monsters as they try to blend in with the human world in a fictional Italian coastal town.
Review: 'Luca' is Pixar, Italian style
Review: 'Luca' is Pixar, Italian style — and one of the studio's loveliest movies in years. Luca (Jacob Tremblay) and Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer) in a scene from the Pixar movie "Luca ...
Luca
Luca is an absolutely charming animated feature that takes audiences to an unforgettably touching trip to Italy. Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Feb 16, 2022
Luca review: Pixar's Riviera dream is a beautiful evocation of youthful
The animation is a gorgeous, tender-hearted paean to childhood summers spent with sunburnt noses and callused fingers
Luca Review: Pixar's Refreshing Summer Treat Channels Studio Ghibli
In a way, her unbridled lust for life helps liberate this movie from the airlessness of Pixar's vaunted — almost clinical — approach to storytelling, and allows "Luca" to retain a rare ...
Luca (2021)
Luca: Directed by Enrico Casarosa. With Jacob Tremblay, Jack Dylan Grazer, Emma Berman, Saverio Raimondo. On the Italian Riviera, an unlikely but strong friendship grows between a human being and a sea monster disguised as a human.
Luca First Reviews: Decidedly Small-Scale Pixar, but a Triumph
Luca First Reviews: Decidedly Small-Scale Pixar, but a Triumph Nonetheless Critics say Pixar's latest plays it safer than usual, but it still boasts the spectacular visuals, moving story, and important themes we've come to expect.
Luca (2021)
Luca is Disney's latest animated film from Pixar featuring the voice talents of Jacob Trembaly (Wonder),Jack Dylan Grazer (Shazam),Emma Berman,Staverton Raimondo,Maya Rudolph (Bridemaids) and Jim Gaffigan (13 Going On 30).
'Luca' Review: A Friendly Pixar Trifle About a Sea ...
With the exception of the tot-friendly, adult-numbing "The Good Dinosaur" (2015), " Luca " is as much of a trifle as the Pixar Animation Studios have ever come up with. That sounds like a ...
Luca
LUCA is a pure shot of summer nostalgia with a dash of whimsy and a beautifully well done animated style. Luca and Alberto are two of the best Pixar characters from their modern batch of films and how they develope throughout the movie is endearing.
'Luca' review: New Pixar film delivers a lighthearted Italian delight
The new lighthearted romp "Luca" doesn't drown in the usual Pixar profundity yet still navigates coming-of-age themes quite swimmingly with some appealing animated youngsters.
Pixar's new movie Luca is understated brilliance
Pixar's newest movie is a fantasy about sea monsters coming onto land, but it's rooted in authentic childhood memories. Director Enrico Casarosa (who previously made the Pixar short La Luna ...
Luca Review: Pixar's Animation Brings A Lot Of Heart & Adventure To Its
Luca, directed by Enrico Casarosa from a screenplay by Jesse Andrews and Mike Jones, is heartwarming, beautifully told, and would have been well worth seeing on the big screen. With Luca, Pixar recaptures a lot of the magic and heart that its animations are known for while providing a lovely, heartwarming character journey.
Luca: Why The Movie's Reviews Are So Positive
Pixar's latest effort, the coastal adventure Luca, is arriving on Disney+ to an excited response. Here's a roundup of why the reviews are so positive.
'Luca' review: Pixar's generic (and literal) fish out of water tale
Pixar dips into the ocean once too often with "Luca," a colorful but thin (and literal) fish-out-of-water tale. Although the movie touches on familiar themes about friendship, overcoming ...
Luca Movie Review & Summary: A Pleasant Little Tale Of Friendship
Luca Movie Review Luca is all kinds of fun, indeed. While I have been wanting them to really dig into the lore aspects of animation and churn something super original like Coco, Luca is still a worthy contender which tickles your emotions and makes you smile.
New York Film Festival Sets Luca Guadagnino's 'Queer ...
The New York Film Festival said Luca Guadagnino's Queer will be the Spotlight Gala of the 62nd New York Film Festival, making its U.S. premiere. The adaptation of William S. Burroughs's novel ...
Pixar Movie 'Hoppers' Stars Jon Hamm, Bobby Moynihan
Pixar gave fans at D23 a peek at plans for the body-swap movie 'Hoppers,' starring Jon Hamm and Bobby Moynihan, targeted for release in 2026.
Inside Out 2
Inside Out 2 adalah film animasi remaja Amerika Serikat tahun 2024 yang diproduksi oleh Pixar Animation Studios untuk Walt Disney Pictures. Sekuel dari Inside Out (2015), disutradarai oleh Kelsey Mann (dalam debut penyutradaraannya), diproduksi oleh Mark Nielsen, dan ditulis oleh Meg LeFauve.
Autodesk Maya
Autodesk Maya is 3D visual effects software for character creation, rigging, animation, and simulation. Buy a subscription from the official Autodesk store or a reseller.

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Pixar’s Luca Is a Literal Fish-Out-of-Water Fantasy Intent on Saying Something

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‘Luca’ Review: Pixar’s Refreshing Summer Treat Channels the Spirit of Studio Ghibli

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Luca First Reviews: Decidedly Small-Scale Pixar, but a Triumph Nonetheless

How does it compare to other Pixar movies?

Is it just a simpler Pixar movie than we’re used to?

How are the visuals?

Does it bring on the usual waterworks?

Are the characters memorable ?

How is the screenplay?

Are its themes up for interpretation ?

Who is Luca ultimately for?

Will it remind us of any other films ?

Is it rewatchable?

Will Luca leave us hopeful for Pixar’s future ?

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