Luca (PG)
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In the U.S., this was primarily released on Disney+ instead of theaters, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, though it did have a limited theatrical run here and a larger run in some other countries. So I'm listing it under theatrical movies rather than web movies. I definitely enjoyed everything about it: the animation, the story, the characters, etc. But it didn't really wow me enough to be among my favorite Pixar movies.

Wikipedia says it's set in the summer of 1959, which I'd have no clue about from watching the movie, but I guess it makes sense. Anyway, it's about a young (Wikipedia says 12-year-old) sea monster named Luca Paguro, though I want to say the "sea monsters" in this movie didn't seem very monstrous to me. They're vaguely humanoid (and of course partly fishoid), and they're no larger than humans, so there's really no reason to be afraid of them. Anyway, Luca collects human items, which reminded me of Ariel in The Little Mermaid, though he had far less interest in actually going to the surface world. And he's strictly forbidden to do so by his mother, Daniela (Maya Rudolph). But one day he meets another sea monster named Alberto Scorfano (who Wikipedia says is 14), who's been living on land (away from humans) for quite awhile. He gets Luca onto dry land, where they immediately transform into humans. (They'll spend much of the movie trying not to get wet when around real humans.) When he later returns home and his parents discover he had gone to the surface, his father Lorenzo (Jim Gaffigan) calls on his brother, Ugo (Sasha Baron Cohen) to take Luca to live in the depths of the ocean. This causes Luca to run (er, swim) away to stay on the surface with Alberto.

The two of them want to get a Vespa. They try building one themselves several times, but they don't have motors, and they're very rickety and dangerous. Eventually they go into the nearby town of Portorosso, where they befriend a girl named Giulia Marcovaldo (who Wikipedia says is 13), and end up staying with her and her fisherman father, Massimo. Giulia wants to compete in a local triathlon, which involves swimming, eating pasta, and biking. She has a nemesis, the longtime champion of the race, Ercole Visconti, who is not only too old to still be competing, he's mean to pretty much everyone, including his own lackeys, Ciccio and Guido. Luca and Alberto join Giulia's team to compete against Ercole (and plenty of other competitors, but he's the only one of importance). The two sea monsters hope to win prize money that would allow them to buy a Vespa, while Giulia just wants the satisfaction of beating Ercole. And Luca develops a love of learning, and hopes to attend Giulia's school when she leaves after summer break. Meanwhile, Daniela and Lorenzo come to town to find Luca and bring him home. (They do whatever they can to get all the local children wet, to find out which one is Luca.)

I guess that's all I want to divulge of the plot, but I will say it has a happy ending. And there's a post-credits scene with Ugo. Anyway, definitely a fun movie. And I liked the bits of Italian dialogue peppered throughout the film, even if I couldn't understand it.

A short film based on the movie, called Ciao Alberto, was released on Disney+ above five months after the movie.