Pun Salad

Thanks to our Disney+ subscription, the latest Pixar movie. It's not top-drawer Pixar, but that's still pretty good.

The premise is that sea monsters (intelligent, of course) live just off the coast of a timeless but charning Italian Riviera fishing village. The village's humans have legends of the monsters, viewing them with fear and loathing. And harpoons.

The monsters, for their part, only want to live in peace.

At this point, I think we're supposed to think to ourselves: "Who are the real monsters here, hm?" But, bless them, Pixar does not beat us over the head with this.

The monsters keep another secret under wraps: when they're on dry land, they transform into human form. So it comes as a shock to young monster Luca when this (more or less) accidentally happens to him. Fortunately, he comes under the wing flipper of young Alberto, a sea monster who's taken up land-living on his own.

Luca and Alberto become fast friends, become obsessed with young-boy things. Specifically, they become obsessed with getting their hands on a Vespa motor scooter. (They really are things of beauty.) Which draws them into the fishing village, meeting young human girl Giulia. She has a dream of her own, namely winning the yearly village race from the perennial champ (and the movie's villain) Ercole.

Whew. And that's just the beginning.