As people discuss the downfall of Disney, and the lackluster output by Pixar, I need to point out always that Luca is terrific. This Spring, taking advantage of a release schedule altered by the strikes last year, Disney released Soul, Turning Red, and Luca theatrically, since they did not receive theatrical runs due to the pandemic. I thought Soul was good, but I wasn’t obsessed. I’m not a big Turning Red fan, but Luca is delightful.

Taking place off the coast of an Italian fishing village, this is a story of discovery, adventure, family, taking risk, and making the most out of life. It’s inspiring, moving, original, and everything we always wanted from a Pixar film. It feels like it has the kind of heart that made the 2000’s Pixar titles so memorable, and something that has lacked ever since sequels kept coming and John Lassiter exited. I know, his exit is supposed to be a good thing. but, I’ll fully agree with that when they find someone to run Pixar who can make the consistency he was responsible for, cause it is starting to look like he was the studio. Luca is one of those rare gems where enough creative people got together and made magic. Not this new school stuff, but old school Pixar magic.

I adore this film, and watching it again thanks to a theatrical rerelease in March was a delightful surprise. The narration by Darren Rivets and Deluxe is great at bottling that imagination that fuels not just the best Pixar movies, but a term Disney uses company wide. People are literally hired to be Imagineers. The voice work here by the cast is solid, and the relationship that develops between these friends is something kids can relate to.

I know the LGBT community have found a lot of themes in this movie as well, and since I also fall under that, I should say that when I first saw this I didn’t quite pick up on that. It wasn’t until more people started talking about it that I started analyzing this film, and what it is trying to say. is it Call Me By your Name? Or, are we so starved, we are eating sand? I think it is a bit more of the latter. Usually, when Disney and Pixar include LGBT content, they are less shy. There was clearly a same sex parental unit in Finding Dory, there’s a very vocally out character in Strange Planet, Lightyear is pretty open about its character’s sexuality, and of course we have our adorable family in Frozen. They have been less afraid to be direct. I think this is a little more of an interpretation, of how two friends have such a strong emotional bond that we want them to be something more. But can’t they just be really good friends?

I had a friend who moved when I was a kid, and then later I was the one who moved, and both of those experiences if you were to look at them through a 2024 Luca lens, could be interpreted as gay. But it was just two kids realizing they would never see each other again, after spending so much time together. And I did, actually, never see either of them again, as I grew up in an age before Facebook and their names are far too common.

Luca just is a really terrific film. It’s not my favorite. I think it’ll be so hard for any new Pixar movie to top wall-E, Up, or the first two Toy Story films. But, in the pantheon of Pixar, this one rises close to the top, and far above releases that came out even during :Lasseter’s reign. This is a truly special film, and you can look at it any way you want. That’s the power of film, is that we all relate to things differently. if Luca touches you as an adorable story of friendship, great. If it reminds you of your early years as a gay youth, that’s great too. I don’t think either point is invalid. Because, I look at it from my own experiences, and that helps how I interpreted it. So why can’t you?

One thing that isn’t up for debate is that Luca is very underrated.

Final Grade: A