Luca Struggles to Catch Pixar’s Magic

At the end of the day, at least The Good Dinosaur had Sam Elliot as a T-Rex. 

Luca was released on Disney+ in 2021, and was directed by Enrico Casarosa. When a young sea monster travels to the surface, he makes friends with some locals in a daring attempt to get what he believes to be the greatest thing humans ever invented, a Vespa Motorbike. 

The animation, while appealing at first glance, doesn’t quite feel like it was made with a huge budget. It looks a lot like other modern animation features, such as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, or Zootopia. It lacks its own design, and while the colors and some of the cinematography are vibrant, nothing really comes together to make the world feel lived in, or alive. 

Many of the character designs are unoriginal as well, with Luca himself, as well as the father of a girl in the village, looking like they were taken straight out of a Pixar short from 2011, La Luna. What makes these designs feel more lazy when you realize Casarosa directed that short as well. 

Other than a cat who has maybe 4 minutes of screen time, the characters themselves are pretty forgettable. It’s hard to imagine anyone will use them to represent Pixar’s best writing anytime soon. The worst character by far would be the villian, who’s name I’ve already forgotten and do not plan to look up because there’s good reason to believe that you won’t remember him either. He is without a doubt, Pixar’s worst villain. 

The weirdest part in the film has got to be near the end of the second act, and the movie’s villain beats up one of the main characters. It’s strange not just from a tonal perspective, but the fact that there’s this “joke” about how no one knows the villains age and because of this, the scene just turns into a 16-18 year old and his friends beating up a literal child in an alley way because he wants to win a race. There’s too many smaller moments like this that either weren’t thought out, or no one cared to have make sense. 

The music is also incredibly bland, with no memorable themes. 

Luca’s biggest problem is that everything it tries, another film has done better. There is more you could talk about Luca if you really wanted to, but much like the film itself, there’s no point to it. Maybe this script should have been left in the ocean.

[My grade for Luca is a D]