LUCA

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+
Animation: A-

Someone I follow on Twitter called Luca “Call Me By Your Name meets The Shape of Water,” and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that. This movie is indeed about sea monsters, after all, two of which turn into young boys who form a relationship that seems, from the right angle, at least romantic-adjacent.

This is a Disney-Pixar film, after all, and rest assured that, in sharp contrast to those other two movies, there’s no fucking in this one. I mean, you might as well say this movie is “Call Me By Your Name meets Elisa Fucks a Fish.” Side note: this has to be the first review I have ever written of a movie for children in which I reference fucking not once, but twice. Oh wait, that makes three. This review is not for children!

I mean, of course it isn’t. No children give a shit what some 45-year-old looking for queer subtext thinks about some Disney movie they’re sure to find perfectly entertaining. I do have a bit of a flip-side suspicion here, though. I’m not sure it’s an accident that Disney opted to release Luca straight to Disney+ without even a limited theatrical release. I have to admit, by Pixar standards, or at least by the bar they set themselves decades ago, this one is comparatively . . . let’s say, slight. The story has what we might have called twenty years ago a bit of a “straight to video” quality.

That is, I suppose, unless you’re looking for the aforementioned queer coding. Whether that was any part of director and co-writer Enrico Casarosa’s intention is anybody’s guess, although if you happen to have seen Call Me By Your Name, especially considering this film’s Italian setting, it’s hard not to see some similarities. And then there’s the pretty direct reference, near the end, to how some humans will accept him and some of him won’t, but “he seems to know how to find the good ones.” If nothing else, it has a pure and sweet message about friendship and finding your tribe even if something about you makes you different.

And Luca is an undeniably sweet, often adorable little movie. It just doesn’t have the depth, or the expansive world building, that typically sets Pixar apart. These are sea creatures after all, and we spend some time in their underwater world, but there doesn’t seem to be much to their ecosystem—their habitat it exceedingly simple and surprisingly lacking in aquatic diversity. Finding Nemo, this is not. Curiously, when Luca transforms into human form on land and befriends a local girl, she ignites in him an interest in astronomy, with a couple fantasy sequences in celestial space—which, again, pale in comparison to the Pixar masterpiece WALL-E (which I like now even more than I did upon its release; that film aged into a modern classic). Even the very conceit of sea monsters turning into human form on land brings to mind The Little Mermaid, giving the story an overall sense of being derivative.

I can say this much: I enjoyed Luca more than I did the latest offering from Disney Animation Studios, Raya and the Last Dragon. Objectively speaking, I would say that and Luca average out to about the same level of quality, just for different reasons. Raya has better plotting and better artistic design; Luca has better voice performances and overall better animation sequences.

Speaking of the voice talents, Luca’s title character is played by Jacob Tremblay, who was nine in Room and is fourteen now, but was likely thirteen when voice recording took place. Speaking of which, knowing that Luca was made at home during the COVID-19 pandemic does make one wonder how much more expansive its world-building might have been had they managed to produce the film in the studio. Putting it in that context does make the film seem a bit more impressive.

Not that any of the kids who are the target audience are going to be thinking about that—nor are they going to care all that much that, for instance, Luca’s parents are voiced by Maya Rudolph an Jim Gaffigan, or that Sacha Baron Cohen shows up in a brief but amusing scene as the anglerfish-like Uncle Ugo. They’ll merely be sufficiently entertained. I’m not sure what makes an animated feature completely addictive to young children, as in a phenomenon like Frozen or Finding Nemo. I just know that Luca doesn’t have it. It’s above above average by Disney standards and fairly middle-of-the-road by Pixar standards, but it looks great and has its charms in the moment, fleeing as they might seem once the movie ends.

Don’t get them wet! No, this isn’t Gremlins. Is no one going to talk about how he has a glass of water?

Overall: B