A sea monster is drawn to the surface world by his curiosity, where he, disguised as a human, learns more about the world and friendship.
Luca was a heartwarming and wholesome story about friendship and acceptance. It had some similarities to The Little Mermaid – an aquatic being longing to explore the unfamiliar surface world – but instead of focusing on romance, Luca focused on people putting aside their differences in the name of friendship, and in the end, realizing they were never so different after all. I didn’t really know what to expect going into this other than it was a Pixar movie, and as usual, they did a great job.
Something I like about Pixar is that they tell stories that shine the spotlight on other cultures, like with Ratatouille, Coco, Brave. Luca presents a day in the life of a small Italian town on the coast, complete with colorful buildings, pasta and Vespas.
Luca’s visuals were very well done, both on the surface and underwater. I liked the idea of the sea monsters who, after getting out of the water and becoming dry, are disguised to look like people.
I thought the score could have been a little stronger. It was good, but there was just something missing to give it that iconic and emotional feeling, like in many of the other Pixar movies.
Overall, I’d rate Luca 4/5 stars. I liked it more than I thought I would and would definitely recommend checking it out. I mean, it’s Pixar. They always deliver quality heartwarming family movies, and Luca is no exception. Luca is now streamable on Disney Plus.
Evan McCauley (Mark Wahlberg) is a diagnosed schizophrenic who knows how to do things without learning them and has dreams and hallucinations that seem to belong to other people. He then discovers that he is an Infinite and that these memories are from his past lives and that each time he dies, he is reincarnated into a new body. And only he has the knowledge to stop Bathurst (Chiwetel Ejiofor), another Infinite with sinister plans.
Infinitewas actually pretty good, especially for a free streamable movie. It had over-the-top action like The Fast and the Furious, but with some semblance of an actual story. It was kind of similar to The Old Guard, but instead of just being immortal, they reincarnated. And instead of a battle axe, Mark Walberg had a custom built katana that he forged himself.
The movie still suffered a little from lack of explanation and “just go with it” storytelling, but for the most part, did a good job with the world and story idea. Even though it’s not a completely original idea, I still love the concept. Something I wished about the movie was that we got to see more from Evan’s past lives. We saw a bit at the beginning of the film, with Dylan O’Brien racing through the streets of Mexico in a retro Ferrari, but then we never got to see the cool fight scene on the crane it was leading up to. Let me rephrase, we never saw it completely; only flashes of it, along with some flashes of his other past lives. I was hoping that once he remembered, we would’ve seen the fight scene in its entirety. Or they could have just shown it at the beginning of the film like they did with the rest of that memory. That just felt like a missed opportunity to me.
And while we’re making wishes, I wish they would’ve skipped out some of the unnecessary action scenes and devoted that to the story. As cool as it was to see an armored car barrel through a police station, I think that budget could’ve been put to better use elsewhere. It was an interesting idea that just needed a little more time to flesh out, and I think that would’ve helped this movie in the long run.
Overall, I liked Infinite. I thought it was a cool idea and had good action, and so I’d rate it 4/5 stars. It reminded me a lot of The Old Guard, so if you enjoyed that, you’d probably enjoy this too. Except you get an hour and 46 minutes of Mark Walberg’s beautiful face instead of Charlize Theron’s. It looks like this movie is getting slammed by the critics but I still enjoyed it for what it was and am glad I saw it.
Infinite is available only on Paramount +. If interested, I recommend signing up for a free trial not only to see this movie, but everything else available on the new platform.
Jupiter’s Legacy started off very promising. With the concept of “The Code” to keep heroes in-check, in addition to the variety of heroes, this seemed to be a live action Justice League show.
To start off, I thought Jupiter did a great job with its special effects and the superpowers. It also did a great job with each hero’s costume design and with the aging makeup used to contrast between the present and the flashbacks. The first two episodes, I was really excited about this show. Then the next two episodes followed, and comparatively, they just fell short by being drawn out and, quite simply, boring.
It became clear that the series was going to draw out the flashback story Arrow-style throughout the entire season, when in reality, it could have been wrapped up in only two to three. I really thought the backstory had potential, with the main heroes’ story beginning in 1929 with the stock market crash. But the way the flashback story was drawn out quickly made me lose interest, until they got to actually explaining how they received their powers in episode 7 of the 8-episode season. That was interesting, but even then, it really only explained how they got there and then it jumped to an epic shot of them all suited up and flying with the Sun silhouetting them from behind.
I would have loved it if this explained where their powers came from, how other people in the world got their powers (did they go to the island too?), and what the powers actually came from. All it explained was that on the island, they put aside their differences and proved they were worthy, then were teleported to a Jovian moon and saw a machine there. That’s it. I thought after building it up for an entire season, there would have been more and there just wasn’t. If this backstory had wrapped up earlier, we could have seen more of the Union in their early days of superheroing. We got a glimpse of this in the finale and I really enjoyed it. Seeing more of their early days would have given us the insight we needed about the characters, instead of getting it from the flashback sequences prior to reaching the island.
Another complete miss for me was the story about Chloe, the Utopian’s daughter. She started off as an unlikeable character then just continued on in a downward spiral. It never explained why we were seeing her story and I’m not sure how it fits into the overarching story, if at all. Maybe they were planning on having a redemption arc for her in future seasons to come, but her story felt out of place in the show to me.
This show was a classic example of an interesting idea with bad execution. It could have cut a good chunk of unnecessary content out and instead filled it with relevant story and explanations. It seemed like it just didn’t know what it wanted to be, and because of that, suffered. And this is coming from a guy who loves everything superhero.
It was recently announced that Jupiter’s Legacy was cancelled and that they would not continue on with season 2. I can’t say I’m entirely surprised, it just feels like a missed opportunity. Unfortunately, season 1 left off on a cliffhanger, but even that didn’t make complete sense. The lead actor made a humorous post after the show was announced to be cancelled featuring a shirtless picture of himself with the long white hair and beard saying “What’s up, Hulu?”
Now, I’d guess nothing would come of this but hey, stranger things have happened. Many shows have gotten axed only to be revived by a different channel or platform (except for Firefly). At least Duhamel was a good sport about it.
Overall, I’d rate Jupiter’s Legacy 3/5 stars. I know I had a lot to critique, but it was still an OK show that had potential and fell short. I liked the idea of “The Code” and the question of if it still applies today like it did almost 100 years ago, back in the Golden Age of heroes. And maybe it won’t be picked up by another network or platform, but I hope it gets another shot. Like I said, Jupiter definitely has potential and maybe getting renewed elsewhere would be the wake up call to get it back on track and headed in the right direction.
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