Luca
Gillipedia Official Rating: Low-tier
Pixar is still better than average fare
I was surprised to see Disney not
change its distribution strategy as people are finally starting to show that
they’ll go to the theaters for the right movie. Luca is the latest entry
for Pixar after Soul, and just like its predecessor, the film released exclusively
on Disney’s streaming service that continues to rocket up in viewership and has
reached about half of Netflix’s subscribers. Whereas Soul’s Christmas
2020 timeframe made sense to not release in theaters, I thought Luca
would either pull the premium access route or go the HBO Max route where you
can stream it for free briefly within a month of release or go see it in
theaters. And then I saw the film and the marketing made more sense. I shall
explain.
I believe pre-pandemic that if Luca
had arrived in theaters, it would’ve ended up as one of the worst performing
Pixar films. Having it only release on the streaming platform makes it feel
like a smaller-scale film, and that fits it perfectly. Because that’s what it
is. Luca is a low-key film for Pixar standards. There’s not too many
locations, the cast of characters is relatively small, and the conflict remains
confined to the city of Portorosso where the story takes place in 1950s-60s era
on the Italian Riviera.
But that’s not to say the film is bad
by any means. Rising star Jacob Tremblay stars as the titular Luca, and the
best moments are from his evolving friendship with Alberto Scorfano (Jack Dylan Grazer from It and Shazam!), the orphan
sea monster who pretends to know all there is about the world. Luca is the sea
monster strictly prohibited from leaving the depths of the ocean by his parents
played by Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan, and the first 20 minutes of the film
set Luca and Alberto up into the real plot as they eventually do reach land and
dream of owning their own Vespa Italian scooter to travel the world on.
On shore they run into the bully
Ercole Visconti—who I thought was a young adult at first but I guess is only a
little older than the other kids and runs around with his obeying henchman and
penciled in mustache—where their identities are almost revealed when he tries
dunking Luca’s head into the fountain (the water triggers the transformation
from sea monster to human), but they’re saved by adventure is out there girl
Giulia Marcovaldo. She too is an outcast in her own right, and she’s happy to
take them in with her sea monster hunting father who looks identical to the dad
from Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs minus an arm.
So there’s a couple different
conflicts and subplots that intertwine. The main event is preparing for the
local triathlon where Giulia will swim a leg, Alberto will eat the famous
spaghetti, and Luca will bike the final leg, and Giulia will finally beat
Ercole, and the boys will have enough prize money to buy a cheap Vespa.
Meanwhile, the action takes breaks while Luca’s parents eventually come to
shore and humorously splash the local children with water in hopes of finding
their son—the sequence with soccer is particularly good. So you have the race,
you have Ercole, you have the protective parents, you have the constant threat
of being discovered as a hideous, dangerous sea monster, and you even have one
other conflict where Luca and Giulia bond over learning about the world and
Alberto starts feeling replaced and expendable. With all the threads, it makes
sense to keep things primarily to the one city, but I will say that none of the
resolutions end up hitting home as strong as other Pixar films. There’s decent
tension as two characters have an argument in one later scene, and Giulia’s dad
is a joy, but otherwise, I hate to say it’s a bit paint-by-numbers.
The climax is the triathlon event, and
it really could’ve been punched up more with some dramatic music or more
obstacles thrown in the heroes’ way. Even the previously mentioned Cloudy
With a Chance of Meatballs set up its climax with “Sirius” by The Alan
Parsons Project. Like the big reveal is nice, but it falls short to what Cars
and Cars 3 did with their races. There’s also even a twist thrown it at
the end too, and it makes perfect sense, but it’s also out of left field and
should’ve had more foreshadowing previously with the characters involved for
its impact to work better. Instead, you’re left feeling just a bit shocked and
confused instead for a brief moment.
Ultimately, Luca takes from
some previous Pixar works for not quite as satisfying results. Like I made
brief mention to it earlier, but Giulia is essentially the late wife in Up,
and it feels like there’s borrowed elements from the Cars franchise. And
you could tell the filmmakers struggled to hit 90 minutes. There’s 3 separate
dream sequences. Granted, none are particularly long, and the moon fish one is
pretty cool, but all are unnecessary and absolutely just filler. The bully
Ercole is one of Pixar’s flattest characters ever, and there are hardly any
risks taken. The messaging of the film is inclusive and sweet and has
undeniable Pixar charm, but I also didn’t laugh as much as I’d like in a Pixar
film. There’s a couple of scenes with Sacha Baron Cohen as Luca’s uncle, and I
can admit I was dying laughing in those. The potential for a sequel is out
there and could be interesting, but I’m slightly doubtful considering the end
credits already take care of it a bit.
Luca works on the smaller streaming service of Disney+,
but I think I would’ve come away disappointed had I paid to see this in
theaters. This isn’t even mid-tier Pixar, this is low-tier. But that still
makes it better than the average animated film.
Raya and the Last Dragon
Gillipedia Official Rating: Please tell me you didn’t pay $30 for premium access
This wasn’t a film that was on my
radar much and only caught my attention when it continued Disney’s
cash-grabbing policy of hiding the film behind a pay wall for a service you
already have to pay a monthly subscription for. Now there’s aspects it should be
lauded for like how it employed so many artists having to work from home during
the pandemic and how the film still came together. Now that the premium access
has been removed, I decided to go ahead and check it out.
Raya and the Last Dragon
compellingly uses southeastern Asia culture and utilizes messages of trust and
warns against borders I guess. In the opening narration, part of Raya’s
explanation as to how the world fell apart is “people being people.” It’s kinda
cynical and isn’t the best start. It also doesn’t help that the opening of the
film is Raya rolling around on the amazing Tuk Tuk voiced by Alan Tudyk in a
desolate land—immediately followed by Raya narrating how she’s riding around in
a desolate land. And then she explains what happened 500 years ago when there
used to be dragons, and then she explains that to understand present-day, we
have to go back to when she was a kid to fully know what’s happened. It’s not
like she’s in grave peril and her past will explain how she will get out of her
current predicament. Basically, there’s no reason to start the film in present
times to have to flashback. Just start in the past and then you can flash
forward to the present—there’s no value added to the way the finished film is.
In fact, it’s now all too easy to predict what happens while Raya is a child
because we already know how the world ends up.
There’s 5 kingdoms, and after the
dragons used the last of their abilities to form a dragon stone and repel an
evil form known as the Druun, Raya and her father lead one of the tribes that
now protects the stones. The other clans believe that the stone is the secret
to prosperity, and eventually, everything falls into turmoil and the stone
splits with each clan ending up with a piece. There isn’t a great explanation
as to how Raya knew what to do, but she awakens the legendary dragon Sisu, but
Sisu wasn’t the mythical, all-powerful dragon she was made out to be, and she
requires the other pieces of the dragon stones to gain the powers her dragon
siblings held so that the Druun can be defeated.
Kelly Marie Tran, the annoying Rose
from the recent Star Wars films, voices the titular Raya. And Awkwafina voices
the titular last dragon. It takes a little getting used to Awkwafina’s unique
voice as a dragon, but she’s playful and naturally funny, and she’s easily the
standout performance here. As a quick aside, if you have Amazon Prime, her film
The Farewell is a must-watch. The cast here is rounded out by other big
names like Daniel Dae Kim, Benedict Wong, and Sandra Oh.
The film is outlined surprisingly
similar to a videogame. Raya and Sisu must travel to a place and gather a magic
stone, they meet a new character that joins their misfit group, and they repeat
this 3 more times. The Druun shares the Signs aliens’ weakness of water,
so Raya employs a kid named Boun to act as ship captain as well as chef always
looking to drum up customers. Then there’s a con baby and her monkey friends,
and finally Wong’s Tong—one of the clan leaders whose entire tribe turned to
stone by the Druun. The story works best when Raya, betrayed by a friend as a
kid, keeps wanting to work alone, and all of the companions fight for their
places on her crew and remind her that she’s not the only one who has lost
loved ones to the Druun.
The one that betrayed Raya is Namaari,
and they have a couple fights throughout the film. I thought they could’ve
pushed things even more or extended the fights, but these fights are
some of the best in an animated film. A huge part of that is the culturally
appropriate fighting styles and the use of real stuntpeople to help with the
choreography.
Namaari starts to see the value in
what Raya and Sisu are trying to do, but her mother continues to remind her
that they are only doing what’s best for their clan. And this is a bit of a
spoiler here, but once things get resolved, all the tribes come together. Like
welcoming Namaari is one thing, but they totally gloss over the fact that her
mom really never repented and they just welcome her back with open arms after
she literally was part of the reason the world was crumbling apart.
There’s a shocking moment pretty close
to the climax. And it’s the type of thing that feels like one of those
alternate dream sequences, and for a solid 2 minutes, I really thought that’s
what it would be because of the extremity of the characters’ actions and the
resulting effect. But nope, the characters just have to deal with the
consequences. And they get over themselves pretty easily and it’s the way
tension is built up for the climax as well as setting up the big fight. Points
to not expecting them to go through with it, but it did feel like a dream
sequence for a bit because things start happening really quickly afterward and
there’s no pause in the action to reflect on what just happened. So it’s also a
little jarring.
Tuk Tuk, Awkwafina, and the fight
choreography are the highlights here. But the story is pretty predictable
throughout, the messaging isn’t anything special, and like with Luca,
it’s not as funny as other entries from the studio. Also like with Luca,
it’s an entertaining watch on the service (after how many months it was
initially released) but I would’ve been livid to pay the premium access for
this. With that said, the premium access for this film is way more worth it
than freaking Mulan. As long as you didn’t pay for Mulan, you’re
good. I think the takeaway here is that despite my critiques, you’ll enjoy
yourself if you watch Raya and the Last Dragon.
In
Brief:
- I have another doubleheader review in the works, so stay tuned. I know you guys can’t hardly wait. Which is why I’m offering a $49 premium access to the review before anyone else. It’s good for 48 hours, and you can even setup the projector in the backyard next to the firepit and the barbeque as the whole family gathers to read the review. An extra 5 bucks even gets you a t-shirt.
- If you’re a fan of Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi’s style, he has an extremely quirky New Zealand film called Hunt for the Wilderpeople starring Sam Neill from Jurassic Park and the fat kid from Deadpool 2. It’s very Waititi, and it holds plenty of charm and heart.
- I finally got around to Best Picture winner The King’s Speech. It’s a really enjoyable film through and through, and it’s a cool true story. But what blows my mind and cracks me up is how this was from a newcomer director in Tom Hooper. He found success after this with Les Miserables, but we all know about what happened when Cats released. That’s right. The King’s Speech and Cats is the same director. Let that one sink in.
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