Luca (2021)

Luca (2021) Review 🇮🇹🎣

A Beautiful Italian Summer Wrapped Around a Simple Pixar Story

Let’s Start by Showing Y’all the Trailers, Shall We?

The trailers for Luca immediately establish that this isn’t going to be one of Pixar’s enormous globe-trotting adventures. Instead, the movie sells itself on something much smaller and more intimate: spending one unforgettable summer on the Italian Riviera.

And visually, that was more than enough to get my attention.

The trailers show Luca and Alberto running around a gorgeous seaside town, eating Italian food, riding bicycles, dreaming about owning a Vespa, swimming through crystal-blue water, and generally experiencing the freedom of being kids during summer. Of course, there’s one fairly major complication: they’re secretly sea monsters who transform into humans whenever they’re dry.

The trailers also do a good job showcasing the film’s Italian identity. The colorful buildings, narrow streets, beautiful coastline, fishing boats, piazzas, cafés, food, and surrounding mountains make the setting immediately stand out.

It looks warm.

It looks relaxing.

It looks colorful.

And most importantly, it looks unmistakably Italian.

Rather than selling Luca as another emotionally devastating Pixar movie designed to leave adults reconsidering their entire existence by the credits, the marketing presents it as a charming coming-of-age adventure about friendship, curiosity, and discovering a world beyond the one you’ve always known.

That’s pretty much exactly what the movie delivers.

Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

Luca follows Luca Paguro, a young sea monster living beneath the waters near the Italian Riviera with his family.

His parents have repeatedly warned him that the surface world is dangerous because humans fear and hunt sea monsters. Luca is therefore expected to stay underwater, tend to the family’s goatfish, and avoid humans altogether.

Naturally, Luca is fascinated by everything he’s explicitly been told not to investigate.

His life changes when he meets another young sea monster named Alberto Scorfano, who regularly visits the surface. Luca discovers that sea monsters automatically transform into human form whenever they’re dry, allowing them to walk among humans without immediately being discovered.

Alberto introduces Luca to the surface world, and the two quickly become obsessed with one particular symbol of freedom:

A Vespa.

Their dream eventually takes them to the fictional Italian seaside town of Portorosso, where they meet Giulia Marcovaldo and become involved in the town’s annual race. Winning could finally give Luca and Alberto enough money to purchase the Vespa they’ve been dreaming about.

The problem?

They have to keep anyone from discovering that they’re sea monsters.

The story itself is admittedly pretty simple, but I don’t necessarily think that’s a weakness. Luca isn’t trying to tell an enormous story about saving the world.

It’s about two kids experiencing freedom, friendship, jealousy, fear, and curiosity while discovering that the world is much bigger than they originally believed.

Character Rundown

Luca is a very likable protagonist because his defining characteristic is curiosity.

He’s spent most of his life being told what he shouldn’t do.

Don’t visit the surface.

Don’t interact with humans.

Don’t explore.

Don’t question things.

But Luca desperately wants to understand the world beyond the ocean.

His friendship with Alberto finally gives him the confidence to explore that curiosity, and there’s something genuinely relatable about watching him become fascinated by things humans consider completely ordinary.

Then there’s Alberto, who is basically Luca’s opposite.

Where Luca is cautious, Alberto throws himself headfirst into everything.

He introduces Luca to the idea of telling the frightened voice inside his head, “Silenzio, Bruno!”, which becomes one of the movie’s recurring jokes and eventually a pretty effective representation of overcoming fear.

But Alberto also has insecurities underneath all that confidence. His friendship with Luca means considerably more to him than he initially admits, and some of the movie’s strongest emotional material comes from watching that insecurity slowly reveal itself.

Giulia is another great addition.

She’s energetic, competitive, intelligent, and absolutely determined to win the Portorosso Cup. More importantly, she introduces Luca to books, astronomy, school, and an entirely different future than the one he originally imagined.

Her father, Massimo, might honestly be one of my favorite characters in the movie.

He’s this enormous, intimidating fisherman with one arm who initially looks like he could crush Luca and Alberto simply by staring at them hard enough.

But underneath that intimidating appearance, he’s actually a caring father and surprisingly sweet character.

Then we have Ercole Visconti, the movie’s villain.

And this is where the movie becomes considerably less interesting for me.

Ercole works perfectly fine as the obnoxious local bully you’re supposed to dislike, but compared with some of Pixar’s more memorable antagonists, there really isn’t much to him. He’s arrogant, cruel, obsessed with winning, and spends most of the movie tormenting children who are noticeably younger than him.

He’s functional.

He’s occasionally funny.

But he’s certainly not one of Pixar’s greatest villains.

Pacing / Episode Flow

At around an hour and a half, Luca moves incredibly quickly.

Honestly, I think that works in its favor.

The movie understands exactly what kind of story it’s telling and doesn’t unnecessarily stretch it into two hours.

The opening underwater portion establishes Luca’s life and family.

His friendship with Alberto introduces the surface world.

Their journey into Portorosso establishes the central competition.

From there, the movie spends most of its runtime developing Luca, Alberto, and Giulia’s friendship while preparing for the race.

It’s simple storytelling, but it’s efficient.

There are a few moments where I think the movie could have slowed down and explored certain ideas more deeply, especially the history between humans and sea monsters, but the relatively short runtime keeps everything moving.

It feels like a summer vacation.

You arrive.

You explore.

You make memories.

And suddenly it’s over much faster than you expected.

The Italian Setting & Scenery

Okay.

This gets its own section because…

My God, this movie is gorgeous.

The Italian Riviera setting is easily one of my favorite things about Luca.

Pixar doesn’t aim for photorealism here. Everything has a softer, almost storybook quality, but that actually makes Portorosso feel even more inviting.

The pastel-colored buildings climbing along the hillsides are beautiful.

The narrow stone streets winding through town are beautiful.

The little piazza filled with people eating and talking is beautiful.

The fishing boats sitting along the harbor are beautiful.

The mountains towering over the Mediterranean are beautiful.

The sparkling blue water is beautiful.

Even the laundry hanging between buildings contributes to the atmosphere.

You can practically feel the Mediterranean sunshine coming through the screen.

There’s also something incredibly cozy about the way the movie portrays everyday Italian life. People gather together in the town square. Fishermen bring their catches into the harbor. Kids race bicycles through narrow streets. Families sit together eating meals. Food is constantly being prepared and shared.

And naturally…

There’s pasta.

Lots of pasta.

The movie understands that Italy isn’t simply a background for the story. Portorosso feels like a place where people actually live.

There’s a wonderful sequence where Luca becomes fascinated with learning, and another where the characters simply sit down together for an Italian meal. Those smaller moments give the setting personality.

The movie was heavily inspired by the Italian Riviera and Liguria, and you can absolutely see that influence throughout Portorosso. The colorful buildings stacked against steep green hills and overlooking the Ligurian Sea immediately evoke places such as the coastal villages of Cinque Terre.

If I’m rating the Italian scenery separately from the movie itself?

Italian Scenery: 10/10 🇮🇹

Absolutely gorgeous.

If Pixar’s secret plan was to make people want to immediately travel to the Italian coast…

Mission accomplished.

Pros

The biggest strength of Luca is its atmosphere.

This is such a pleasant movie to spend ninety minutes with.

The friendship between Luca and Alberto provides the emotional backbone, and both characters are extremely likable.

Giulia adds another fun personality to the group without feeling like she’s simply there to create conflict between the boys.

Massimo is fantastic.

The animation is beautiful.

The transformation between human and sea-monster forms is creative.

The Italian setting is phenomenal.

I also appreciate that Pixar allows the movie to remain relatively small.

Nobody has to save the universe.

There’s no giant supernatural villain.

The fate of civilization isn’t hanging in the balance.

It’s basically about two sea-monster kids who want a Vespa.

And somehow…

That’s enough.

The movie also captures childhood curiosity remarkably well. Luca becomes fascinated with astronomy, books, machines, bicycles, trains, and everything else the human world offers.

Watching his world gradually expand is probably the strongest part of his character arc.

Cons

My biggest issue is simply that Luca isn’t particularly ambitious narratively.

That’s not automatically bad, but it does mean the movie doesn’t hit me emotionally or thematically as hard as Pixar’s absolute best films.

The sea-monster mythology is also surprisingly underdeveloped.

We know humans fear sea monsters.

We know sea monsters fear humans.

But there isn’t much exploration of how this relationship developed or exactly how the two societies have interacted throughout history.

Ercole is another weak point.

He’s deliberately obnoxious, and you’re obviously supposed to hate him, but he’s a very basic bully antagonist.

There are also moments where the movie’s central misunderstanding between Luca and Alberto feels somewhat predictable. Once Giulia begins introducing Luca to education and the possibility of attending school, you can pretty easily see where the friendship conflict is heading.

None of these issues ruin the movie.

They simply keep it from reaching Pixar’s absolute top tier for me.

Final Thoughts

Luca is a movie that I think succeeds largely because it understands exactly what it wants to be.

It’s not Toy Story.

It’s not WALL-E.

It’s not Up.

It’s not Inside Out.

And it doesn’t need to be.

It’s a small, sweet coming-of-age story about friendship, curiosity, acceptance, and discovering that there is an enormous world waiting beyond whatever boundaries you’ve grown up with.

Luca and Alberto’s friendship gives the movie its heart.

Giulia gives Luca another reason to become curious about the human world.

Massimo provides some of the movie’s best quieter moments.

And Portorosso gives the entire adventure an absolutely gorgeous identity.

More than anything, Luca makes me want to spend a summer in Italy.

I want to wander through those little streets.

I want to sit beside the Mediterranean.

I want to eat the pasta.

I want to explore those colorful coastal villages.

I’ll pass on being chased through town with a harpoon, though.

The movie itself isn’t one of Pixar’s masterpieces for me. The story is relatively predictable, the villain is basic, and I wish the sea-monster mythology had received considerably more development.

But what it does well…

It does extremely well.

It’s warm.

It’s funny.

It’s beautiful.

It’s sincere.

And sometimes that’s all a movie needs to be.

Rating: 8/10

A charming and beautifully animated Pixar adventure with a wonderful central friendship and an absolutely spectacular Italian setting. The story isn’t particularly complicated and the villain isn’t anything special, but the movie’s heart, atmosphere, humor, and celebration of childhood curiosity make it an incredibly enjoyable experience.

And once again…

Italian scenery: 10/10.

Seriously, Pixar.

You’re making me want to buy a plane ticket.

SPOILER WARNING

Everything beyond this point contains major spoilers for Luca.

If you haven’t watched the movie yet…

Go watch it.

Then come back.

Preferably with pasta.

Spoilers

The emotional centerpiece of the movie comes from the growing divide between Luca and Alberto.

At first, both boys have exactly the same dream.

Get a Vespa.

Travel the world.

Freedom.

But once Luca meets Giulia and begins learning about astronomy and school, his ambitions start changing.

Suddenly the Vespa isn’t enough.

Luca wants an education.

He wants to understand the stars.

He wants to see everything the world has to offer.

And Alberto realizes that Luca may eventually leave him behind.

That makes Alberto’s behavior much more understandable once we learn that his father abandoned him.

His confidence throughout the movie has partly been a mask.

Luca isn’t simply his friend.

Luca has become his family.

That makes the moment where Alberto deliberately reveals himself as a sea monster particularly painful.

Luca panics.

And instead of defending him…

Luca pretends he’s shocked too.

He betrays Alberto to protect his own secret.

It’s easily one of Luca’s worst moments, but it’s also necessary for his character growth.

Eventually Luca realizes that he can’t continue hiding who he is simply because he’s afraid of how people might react.

That culminates during the Portorosso Cup when rain begins falling.

For most of the movie, water has represented danger because even a tiny amount immediately reveals Luca and Alberto’s true forms.

During the race, Luca finally stops running from that fear.

When Alberto is exposed, Luca deliberately rides into the rain to help him.

Everyone sees what he really is.

And he does it anyway.

That’s the moment Luca finally silences his own Bruno.

Giulia’s father Massimo accepting Luca and Alberto is also one of my favorite parts of the ending.

The town initially reacts exactly how you’d expect.

Sea monsters!

Grab the harpoons!

But Massimo recognizes that these aren’t monsters.

They’re children.

And once he accepts them, other townspeople gradually follow.

We even discover that there were already other sea monsters quietly living among the humans.

That reveal reinforces the movie’s message that people can fear something simply because they’ve never actually taken the time to understand it.

Then we reach the ending.

Alberto sells the Vespa so Luca can afford to attend school with Giulia.

That detail is what makes the ending work so well.

The Vespa represented everything Alberto wanted.

Freedom.

Adventure.

A future with Luca.

And he gives it up because he realizes that Luca has discovered something he wants even more.

Education.

Luca boards the train while Alberto stays behind with Massimo.

It’s bittersweet because their friendship isn’t ending due to some dramatic falling-out.

They’re simply growing.

Their lives are heading in different directions.

And that’s something almost everyone eventually experiences.

The people we grow up with don’t necessarily follow us everywhere.

Sometimes loving someone means encouraging them to go somewhere you can’t follow.

For such a simple Pixar movie, that’s a surprisingly mature idea to end on.

And then Luca heads off toward his next adventure while Alberto finally has something he’s desperately needed all along:

A home.

Not bad for a movie about two fish kids who desperately wanted a Vespa.