Admittedly, Luca is an animated film, so the colours are dialled up. But, damn, if it doesn’t make you want to take a cooling dip in the glistening waters and just wash your worries away.While the experience is not as visceral as the real thing, Luca has that effect too as a charming and likeable family movie that gives you the warm and fuzzies without needing to reach for the tissues like most Pixar movies.There’s an interesting conundrum that Pixar has created for itself in that there are expectations that its movies are going to tap into its audience’s reserves of emotional catharsis, eliciting almost a poignant epiphany about life itself.Pixar has done this multiple times, through the likes of Inside Out, Up, Toy Story 3 and, most recently, Soul, whose story about the purpose and grace in life’s small moments hit particularly hard at the end of a tumultuous 2020.RELATED: F9 needed less talking, more stuntsBut not every Pixar movie has to some of form of pop culture therapy. Some Pixar movies can just be lively and fun. Luca is one of those Pixar movies – entertaining, beautifully animated and unchallenging.With shades of The Little Mermaid, Mark Twain or the childhood friendship in My Brilliant Friend, Luca is set on the Italian Riviera in the mid-20th century. Luca (Jacob Tremblay) is a young sea monster who lives off the coast with his parents (Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan) and his grandmother.His parents have warned him to hide if he ever sees humans (“land monsters”) crossing in their boats, because they were “here to do murders”. But Luca had a curiosity about life above – although he doesn’t sing about whozits, whatzits and thingamabobs.One day, while herding fish in a seaweed pasture, Luca sees something glittering nearby – a trail of human objects that leads to Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer). Alberto is Luca’s opposite, confident and brash to Luca’s anxious timidity.NED-3498-What-to-Watch-Article-BannersWhat Luca doesn’t know is that when sea monsters go on land, they take on human form – their scales becoming skin, their tail disappears – and they can pass for people. Alberto is a self-proclaimed people expert and Luca is more than happy to go along for the ride.Enchanted by Alberto’s trove of human things, he’s most attracted to a poster of a shiny Vespa, a symbol of freedom and adventure. They eventually journey across to Portorosso, a small fishing village full of promise, while hiding their secret identities.And that’s what Luca is really about, that drive to explore, to discover and to experience something new, grounded in this lovely tale about childhood friendships, especially that wild friend who pushes you to take chances on something you never knew you were capable of.RELATED: How Onward director Dan Scanlon turned his family story into a Pixar movie The animation is exhilaratingly colourful with a 1950s-era small Italian village popping off the screen with its supporting characters, including the gutsy Giulia (Emma Berman), a young human girl whose greatest desire is to win the town’s triathlon, the Portorosso Cup.Director Enrico Casarosa packs Luca with small touches ranging from the gelataria and the region-specific pesto pasta to the statuary and town fountain. It’s a whirlwind, vivid evocation of place. Tremblay, Grazer and Berman’s voice performances exude joy and the optimism of youth, and bring distinctive flavours to each of their characters – this is particularly impressive given that covid meant sometimes they were recording themselves in their parents’ closets instead of at a professional studio.Luca is a winning movie on many levels and works best as a vibrant story about the pure joys of childhood adventure and imagination.Rating: 3.5/5Luca is on Disney+ from Friday, June 18 at 5pm AESTShare your movies and TV obsessions | @wenleima
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