Skip to main content

Luca (2021) - Movie Review

Where to Watch: Disney+ Hotstar Premium

Luca is Pixar's 24th movie and has released direct-to-streaming similar to Pixar's previous, "Soul". Set in a fictional town called "Portorosso" in Italy, it follows the main character named "Luca Paguro" a "sea monster" that lives underwater that can take the appearance of a human being when out of the water (which he later finds out). 

Luca is warned by his parents not to get out of the water and they call the humans out of the water "land monsters" (It is all about perspectives you see). Now Luca comes across and befriends Alberto who also happens to be a "sea monster" and encourages him to venture out of the water. The pair when out of the water look at a poster of a Vespa scooter (Product Placement?) and start making plans to first build and later purchase one and travel the world. What happens later on forms the crux of the story.

I have seen every one of Pixar's previous 23 full-length movies and I would say that right until "Toy Story 3", (their 11th movie) Pixar did not put a foot wrong. But since that, there has been that movie, here and there, which has not been up to the lofty standards that Pixar has set and that we have gotten accustomed to. Ranking Pixar's movies is difficult and choosing a favourite even more, but if you ask me where I would place Luca, I would say it would not feature in the "Top 15". Now, don't get me wrong there a few good moments here and there but these are only sporadic, some jokes are not funny and I felt irritated by this character named "Ercole Visconti". But I am willing to forgive the creators, because of another character, a cat, named "Machiavelli" (although it appears in only a few scenes). 

Overall, Pixar's works have had something to offer for both kids and adults alike, but this one is a bit fishy (no pun intended) and geared more towards kids. If you are a die-hard fan of Pixar or if you have nothing better to do, you can give it a go.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sunderland 'Til I Die - Season 3 (2024)

Where to Watch: Netflix The third installment of this fly-on-the-wall sports documentary is back on Netflix after four years since the previous season and six years since the first one.  We have a new Chairman - "Kyril  Louis-Dreyfus" the  son of "Robert Louis-Dreyfus" (a former CEO of Addidas and French Football Team Marseille). This season covers  the  2021-2022 season  of Sunderland , their fourth consecutive one in League One.   The season shows their intent to push themselves from "League One" (3rd Tier of the English Footballing System) to "The Championship" (2nd Tier of the English Footballing System). Like the former seasons, this one gives ample screen time to the non-sporting staff and  fans,  and how the club's fortunes  are correlated  with their well-being. Finishing in the top two out of 24 teams guarantees automatic promotion , finishing  anywhere from third to sixth means that you have to go through the dreaded ...

Elemental (2023) - Movie Review

Where to Watch: Disney + Hotstar When I think about Pixar, the first movie that comes to mind is "Toy Story 3" (my favourite animated movie). In 2022, Pixar released "Lightyear" a spin-off of the "Toy Story" Series focusing on one of the series' main characters "Buzz Lightyear". "Lightyear" was a box-office bomb and received mixed reviews. I felt the first 15-20 minutes of that movie were good, but after that it went haywire. In June 2023, Pixar's twenty-seventh movie "Elemental" was released. It is a marked improvement over both "Lightyear" and "Good Dinosaur"(Peter Sohn served as the director for both "Good Dinosaur" and "Elemental"). This movie premiered at the 76th Cannes Film Festival where it received mixed reviews , but the reviews became more positive when it reached wider audiences.  It is the story of the four elements of nature - Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. The focu...

Heat (1995) - Movie Review

Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video Movies, when you decide to watch one, what do you look at? The IMDB score? The Runtime? The Cast? The Genre? The Director? The book/material from which it draws inspiration? When I started watching movies, I used to check the IMDB score. But there were many instances where I felt disappointed, mainly because some had a higher rating than they should have while others had a lower rating. Mostly I think IMDB is biased because users can skew the ratings. Otherwise, how does one justify Mithun Chakraborty's Gunda receiving 7.3/10 (as of 15th Aug 2023)? I reckon Metacritic 's ratings on a scale of 100 makes sense for mainstream movies. I went through the list of my watched movies and gave a rating on a scale of 100 and checked their Metacritic Ratings and found them to be similar to what I had given. (for documentaries I generally don't refer to them as they usually have high ratings). One of my favorite Film critics is Chris Stuckmann. I came...