In a scene that brings to mind Pinocchio experiencing his first moments of sentience or Ariel testing out her new legs, Luca swims to the surface and discovers a world of wonderment, including the wonderment of his own body. But within seconds of meeting Luca - whose natural curiosity spurs varying degrees of protectiveness from his worried mom (Maya Rudolph), absent-minded dad (Jim Gaffigan) and slyly antiauthorian grandma (Sandy Martin) - it’s clear that there’s nothing remotely monstrous about him or the mildly cloying, sometimes hilarious family sitcom he initially seems to be inhabiting.įortunately, “Luca” enters brighter, bolder territory at precisely the moment Luca himself does.
Luca and alberto movie#
The movie confirms and debunks those rumors in the opening minutes, plunging beneath the surface and into a neighborhood of underwater dwellers whose webbed and scaly humanoid bodies might well seem fearsome at first glance. And speaking of seafood: The fishermen who trawl the surrounding waters always do so with harpoons at the ready, lest they encounter one of the fearsome sea monsters rumored to dwell just offshore. The townsfolk navigate the sloped, cobblestoned streets on bicycles and Vespas and enjoy a diet of gelato, pasta and seafood.
(It’s playing an exclusive June 18-24 engagement at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood.) The filmmakers’ most exquisite visual creation here is Portorosso, a fictional village on the Italian Riviera presumably not far from Genoa, Casarosa’s birth city, which inspired his 2011 Pixar short, “La Luna.” In the director’s hands, Portorosso plays host to a parade of well-worn but lovingly deployed cultural clichés. He has an impetuous friend, Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer), whose know-it-all swagger is something of a put-on: Like Luca, he’s lonely and adrift in a world that turns out to be bigger, scarier and more wondrous than either of them could have imagined.įor their part, the animators at Pixar have imagined that world with customary ingenuity and bright-hued splendor, which makes it something of a shame that most audiences will have to watch the movie on Disney+. Luca (Jacob Tremblay), a kid who finds himself in a strange new land, must master its mystifying rules and traditions to survive. The charming insight of this movie, directed by Enrico Casarosa from a script by Jesse Andrews and Mike Jones, is that nearly everyone has something to learn. The key theme of “Luca,” Pixar’s funny and enchanting new feature, is the acquisition of knowledge - and the realization of how liberating, if painful, that knowledge can be. Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials. The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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