[7.5/10] No full review for this one, since I was helping to wrangle a toddler while watching it, but I liked it! It’s certainly one of the most conventional Pixar film’s there’s been. The whole thing leads to a big race featuring our literally-titled underdog protagonist against a cartoonish jerk of villain, to the point that this could be a 1980s sports movie. But it’s cute, and more to the point, the emotions land, which is the biggest thing I ask for from these types of films.

Despite the protestations of the director, it’s hard not to read the film as an LGBT allegory. Little Luca dreams of exploring other worlds, but his family and friends are worried that he won’t be accepted for who he is given his hidden identity. But he meets someone without those connections who’s ready to test the waters (er, the land) and make their way in a different community together, managing to pass despite a few hiccups. The way the journey and new friends lead to jealousy, turning on one’s own, and ultimately self-acceptance and communal understanding, plays as heartening and real. Whether or not the creative team wants to acknowledge it, the subtext of all of this gives the film a real resonance, and boosts it above its very basic storytelling roots.

The animation is quite nice to look at, with an almost Rankin Bass approach to the look and movements of the characters, and the natural colorful beauty of an imagined beachside Italian town. Beyond the traditionalness of the tale, the only real anchor holding this one back is the villain, a cheese-stuffed meatball of an antagonist who has no depth or inner life beyond the “jerk jock” archetype. But Luca’s relationship with his best friends and his family, Alberto struggling with the sense of losing someone close yet again until finding a surrogate father, and Giulia’s pluck and understanding all make the heart of this one sound as a pound.

*Luca* doesn’t exactly break new ground for Pixar (though by making a few things more explicit than hinted at, it could have been), but what it does, it does well, and makes for an endearing little tale.