Luca is a delightful animated feature from Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios that revolves around a rebellious13-year-old with a potentially deadly secret. While he has human characteristics when on dry land, he is actually a dreaded sea monster that humans are bent on hunting and permanently eradicating.

Luca has spent his entire life living in the ocean constantly being lectured by his parents Daniela (voiced by Maya Rudolph) and Lorenzo (voiced by Jim Gaffigan) who are terrified that he will one day venture to the surface where murderous humans are out to kill sea monsters on sight. Despite this, he is obsessed with experiencing the environment that exists on dry land above the surface of the ocean.

His parental rules get thrown out the window when he encounters an object that tumbled out of a boat. He can’t quite figure out how it is used. Upon further examination, he inadvertently meets another sea monster his age named Alberto (voiced by Jack Dylan Grazer) who challenges everything he has been told about venturing to the surface. Unlike Luca, Alberto does whatever he wants to despite potential consequences. He also possesses one thing that Luca does not -- and that is knowledge of how human beings operate.

Alberto has discovered that sea monsters have the ability to be undetected by humans when on dry land because they instantly look human when they leave the water. The only way they can be detected and encounter peril is if water touches them and causes them to instantly transform back into sea monsters.

Upon reaching the surface Luca and Alberto suddenly find themselves on the shores of Portorosso a town located within the Italian Riviera. That’s where they first encounter Giulia, a misunderstood bookworm (voiced by Emma Berman) who is rejected and bullied by her peers especially by narcissistic slime ball Ercole Visconti (voiced by Saverio Raimondo). Giulia has yearned to exact her revenge against Ercole for years.  

The trio forms an alliance, realizing that each possesses the missing ingredient the others need -- be it Guilia’s knowledge of humans or Alberto and Luca’s perceived ability to enable her to successfully take on her fiercest nemesis.

I found Berman’s performance instantly relatable. I agree with her that the character is “really awkward, quirky, goofy and determined and easy to get inside her head.” 

Adults will appreciate that director Enrico Casarosa and screenwriters Jesse Andrews and Mike Jones subtly drive home to children that it’s okay to challenge boundaries placed on them by parents who may know better, but that breaking the rules doesn’t always come without consequences. Viewers also learn a valuable lesson that perception doesn’t always equal reality.

The film’s only flaw is that Alberto isn’t given much of a backstory. Andrews and Jones never establish how the character became so independent, fearless of humans, and what has influenced and or clouded his perception of them. The audience doesn’t witness how he became so knowledgable about them nor how he made the discovery that he could take on human form unless he made direct contact with water. 

(Rated “PG” for some thematic elements, brief violence, rude humor and language)