BEFORE: Jack Dylan Grazer carries over from "Ron's Gone Wrong" - again, I could have skipped yesterday's film and come here straight from "The Mitchells vs the Machines", but I suppose my decision to drop in another film was a happy accident, because it's bumped today's film, which is about the oceans and sea creatures and such (from what I've heard) on to Earth Day, April 22, and I wasn't even thinking along those lines - it's not a holiday I usually try to program for. Anyway, why not make the most of it and acknowledge the tie-in? I can still make Mother's Day on time, because I actually have THREE Mother's Day films this year that all link together, so as long as one of them lands on the right day, I'm fine with it.
I've had some good luck in the past week, in that there turned out to be a way to link to THREE of the animated features that got Oscar nominations this year (for last year), which for me is a great sign of progress being made. That just leaves "Raya and the Last Dragon", which I passed on in January, but has been rescheduled for mid-June, and "Flee", which is a Danish film with an Afghani voice cast, nearly impossible to link to. I mean, I love a challenge, but COME ON!.
THE PLOT: On the Italian Riviera, an unlikely but strong friendship grows between a human being and a sea monster disguised as a human.
AFTER: I feel like crap today, I've got a head cold which I don't THINK is COVID, but I guess these days you can never be sure, the newer variants supposedly feel more like a cold than a life-threatening illness. If only there were some kind of test available... JK, we have four home test kits, but I hate to waste one on what I'm pretty sure is just a cold. Still, my BFF was going to hit town today and stay with us for the weekend, and I felt the need to warn him that I'm sick and not at my best, so he made other arrangements at the last minute. Sorry.
Immediately after watching "Luca" on Friday night (yes, I am catching up), I had to sleep for a solid eight, which is not my usual routine, but new circumstances call for new agenda items - sleep became a necessity, followed by coffee and then more sleep. After eight hours on the sofa, I isolated myself in the basement, again, just to be on the safe side. Now I'm taking generic cold medicine every four hours (not the name-brand orange stuff, so I call it "Fake-Quil", yes, even when I'm sick I remember to be funny) and I'll have to fight through the fog to post a review of "Luca".
There are two movies that this animated film reminded me of, one of course is "The Shape of Water" since several characters are aquatic humanoids, either a genetic offshoot or a separate species, it hardly matters. And I know you're thinking I'm probably going to say "The Little Mermaid" next, because the "mermen" stop looking like sea monsters when they come on land, then they look like regular dry humans, but still sort of look like themselves. And I realize this is what happened to Ariel in that "other" Disney film, but that was an enchantment, and this feature seems to be built right into their DNA. No, the other film this reminded me of is "Call Me by Your Name". Crazy, right?
I know, these characters are kids, so they're not to be sexualized, not in any way, nope, no how, not gonna happen, not in a Pixar (Disney) film. But think about it - the setting is Italy, and there's a younger boy who meets an older boy, and that older boy knows more about how the world works, they form a clear bond and they talk about riding off together on a Vespa and leaving their old lives behind. It's friendship, sure, but it also seems kind of romantic, in a certain, probably non-intentional way. I'm a bit surprised there wasn't a point in the film where they ate peaches, as a bit of an "Easter egg".
It's also a bit of a love-triangle, only, again without the love, because the two boys form a racing team with a girl named Giulia, and it seems like Luca and Giulia might have a thing going, at some point in the future maybe, when they're older (again, KIDS), and I could have sworn that Alberto seemed a little jealous at the thought of this notion. And it's OK now to have gay characters (or potentially future gay characters) in animated films now, just look at "The Mitchells vs the Machines" - after a couple weeks at college, Mrs. Mitchell asked Katie if she and Jade were "a thing" yet, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Good for her (but is Mr. Mitchell down with it, or just clueless?). Besides, the current theories on sexual orientation - sorry, I think it's polysexual gender identity now - I got dinged at work for calling someone "she" instead of "they", but I just can't get the new grammar right sometimes. I'm trying. The current theories say that somebody doesn't "turn" gay or bisexual or omni or whatever, it's that they were always that way and maybe didn't understand it yet. So Luca and Alberto could certainly be THAT way and just not express it yet.
(OK, rant over. I could insert a tangent here about how DisneyCorp is in a damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don't situation - they have to be gay-friendly if they want the LBGTQ+ crowd to keep coming to Orlando, but they also have to kiss up to the Florida state government if they want to keep their special government status as their own legal business entity within the confines of the amusement park. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see what side they take on this "Don't say gay" bill in Florida, which is just the latest attempt to legislate sexual behavior, but since gay marriage and gay rights are the law of the land now, you can't unring that bell, and my guess is that the bill will be struck down as unconstitutional, eventually if not soon.)
Let's get off the topic, because this is a kids movie made for kids. Once Luca and Alberto get to the fishing town of Portorosso and make a friend and an enemy, they join a racing team with their friend, Giulia, to take down their enemy, Ercole, a couple of pegs. For some reason, Ercole is a twenty-something man with a mustache who still competes in this race against a bunch of kids. (Sixteen? His facial hair is probably sixteen...). The easiest way to beat this guy, if you ask me, is to just get him disqualified because he's too old to compete. There, problem solved, movie over I guess. But no, for some reason he gets a pass. Now, the event is something called an "Italian Triathlon", where the three events are swimming, biking up a mountain and down again, and eating a big plate of pasta. I can't be sure, but I THINK this is somehow offensive to Italians, even more than the exaggerated accents throughout the film.
A real triathlon, of course, is swimming, biking and running a marathon - IN THAT ORDER. And I think the reason for that is if people get too tired while swimming, they could drown, so that should go first. Also, if you see a shark in the water that would probably be an incentive to go faster, and then bike away from the beach as quickly as possible. Just me? The weird thing here with this "Italian Triathlon" is that it all three events could be done by one person, or there could be a team of three, with each person doing one event. Now, Luca and Alberto can't do the swimming leg, or they'd turn back into sea monsters, so Giulia has to do it, and that means Luca has to do the biking, but Giulia is a much better biker, and of course both Luca and Alberto are naturally better swimmers. So, what's more important, maintaining their secret, or winning the damn race?
I know that marathoners tend to fuel up with a lot of pasta, but that's usually the night BEFORE the marathon. Making it a PART of the race is interesting, though again, probably offensive to Italians. (What's a German triathlon? Eating a plate of sauerkraut, drinking a stein of beer and then invading Poland? I can tell this joke because I'm of German descent, mostly. Also, the Germans don't have triathlons because they don't believe in the mixing of the races...). This combination of three different sports - swimming, eating and biking - actually seems like a decent challenge for one person because it requires different skills for each segment, kind of like the winter biathlon (cross-country skiing and target shooing) or chess boxing. Yes, that's a thing. Two people spar in a boxing ring and beat each other about the head, then have to sit down and play chess, which at that point could be rather difficult.
While Luca is enjoying his new life among the humans, and training for the race, his parents have also come to Portorosso to find him (shades of "Finding Nemo"?) and now they pass for humans, too - but they're not sure what their own son looks like as a human person, so they have to run around town and find excuses for dunking kids in the fountain, dropping water balloons on them or slipping with a watering can. NITPICK POINT: Even the girls? They know they have a son, right? Do why do they have to get all the little girls in town wet, too? Unless the sea monsters can change their gender when they transform? Again, let's not even go there, it's too controversial.
My other chief complaint is that there were too many times where Luca and/or Alberto got wet and started to transform, and had to hurriedly find a way to dry off and turn back to looking like a human. It was interesting maybe the first couple times, but after a few hundred the joke really started wearing thin. Eventually the plot decides that this gag has gone on way too long, and so the characters are forced to reveal their species status, and the town's citizens are forced to confront their prejudices against sea monsters. It's a fine message, but it just took too long to get there.
OK, and Giulia swearing with the names of cheeses ("Santa Mozzarella! Santa Gorgonzola!"). That's definitely derogatory toward Italians, right? I'm surprised nobody complained about this - I mean, I know you can't have characters swearing in a Disney movie, but surely there must have been a better solution than THIS.
Also starring the voices of Jacob Tremblay (last seen in "Doctor Sleep"), Emma Berman, Saverio Raimondo, Maya Rudolph (last heard in "The Mitchells vs the Machines"), Marco Barricelli, Jim Gaffigan (last seen in "The Last Blockbuster"), Peter Sohn (last heard in "The Good Dinosaur"), Lorenzo Crisci, Marina Massironi, Gino La Monica, Sandy Martin (last seen in "Some Kind of Beautiful"), Giacomo Gianniotti (last seen in "Race"), Elisa Gabrielli (last heard in "Shock and Awe"), Mimi Maynard, Sacha Baron Cohen (last seen in "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm"), Francesca Fanti, Jonathan Nichols, Jim Pirri (last heard in "Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay"), Enrico Casarosa.
RATING: 7 out of 10 types of pasta (turns out there are over 600 kinds, according to the interwebs)
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