Leo (film)
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| Leo | ||||||||||||||||||||
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 "You trusted someone to hear your problems. That's all we need. Remember, everyone's scared. So don't keep it to yourself. Find your Leo to talk to. It could be your teacher, your mom, your friend..." -Leo while talking to fifth graders who are about to be graduated.
"Your turtle." -Squirtle. "They're ready to listen. I promise they'll make you feel better." -Leo | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Leo is a 2023 American computer-animated coming-of-age musical comedy film directed by Robert Marianetti, Robert Smigel and David Wachtenheim (in Marianetti and Wachtenheim's feature directorial debuts), written by Smigel, Adam Sandler, and Paul Sado, and produced by Sandler. The second animated feature from Sandler's production company Happy Madison Productions, it stars him in the titular voice role, alongside Bill Burr and Cecily Strong.
Leo was released on Netflix on November 21, 2023.
Plot
Longtime class pets Leo the tuatara and Squirtle the Florida box turtle live in a sixth-grade classroom at a Fort Myers elementary school. During a parent-teacher conference, the pregnant sixth-grade teacher Mrs. Salinas announces her maternity leave. As the parents come to express their displeasure with the substitute teacher whom Principal Spahn has selected to cover for Mrs. Salinas, Leo overhears one of them say that tuataras live to be 75 years old and despairs when he realizes he is 74 and has not accomplished his dreams of going to the Everglades. The next day, the strict substitute Virginia Malkin arrives and is quickly loathed by the students.
Leo is taken home for the weekend by Summer, an overly talkative girl. While trying to make his escape, Leo accidentally reveals to Summer that he can talk, and suggests to her that she ask more questions to improve her conversations with classmates. As a result, Summer becomes more popular. One by one, her fellow students Eli, Jayda, two boys both named Cole, Skyler, Logan, Mia, Kabir, TJ, Zane, and Anthony take Leo home each weekend, confiding in him with their own issues and concerns, to which he provides wisdom and support, improving each of their lives. However, Leo requests that each student keep his talking ability a secret from the others and doesn't tell any of them that the others know he can talk.
Jealous of the attention Leo is getting, Squirtle decides to expose him. Feeling betrayed, the class disregards Leo. Ms. Malkin takes Leo home when she discovers he talks and has been helping her students. Leo learns that she never accomplished her dream of being a real teacher, which is why she's always mean to the students, and he attempts to give her advice. The next day, the students win the history fair with their historical figure reenactments, with their prize being a field trip to Magic Land Park. Wanting to take all the credit, Ms. Malkin abandons Leo at the Everglades and proceeds to lie to the students, who wanted to apologize to Leo, by telling them that Leo left them.
As the students travel to Magic Land Park, a guilt-ridden Squirtle uses Eli's drone to catch up with them and reveals that Ms. Malkin lied, to which she confesses. The students and Ms. Malkin hijack the bus and head to the Everglades. Meanwhile, Leo learns from wild tuataras that he can live to be over 110 years old, reinvigorating him. Leo is threatened by a congregation of alligators, but is rescued by Ms. Malkin and the students.
On the final day of the school year, Leo tells the class to look out for one another as they enter middle school. Ms. Malkin is given a full-time job as a teacher by Principal Spahn and is promptly assigned to the kindergarteners, with Leo and Squirtle as the class pets.
Why This Movie Takes a Lot of Help and a Little Love (No Pun Intended)
- The idea of a lizard living in an elementary school as a class pet, was taken home by students every day where it would give advice to them, is both interesting, creative, and original, even for a Adam Sandler animated movie, who used to create bad movies, but this one is much better.
- Adam Sandler did a really good job for voice acting Leo, and it was actually surprising since he mostly plays three different character traits (the annoying man-child with a silly voice in Billy Madison, the mean-spirited cynical jerk in Happy Gilmore, and the struggling family man in Big Daddy and Click) in every single movie that he acts, since the last time that he played different characters traits in other movies was Hotel Transylvania and Uncut Gems.
- The kids in this movie are surprisingly enough relatable, like Summer, the kid who talks too much, Jayda, the rich popular girl, Eli, the kid who's been overprotected, Mia, the science-wiz kid and has divorced parents, just to name a few.
- Ms. Malkin is also a relatable character, since, at first glance she was this uptight, unlikable, strict teacher who always stick to these old methods like punishing students for their bad behavior, always giving them too much homework for students to study hard, and her stern behavior to teach them responsibility; however, as the movie goes on, it reveals that the reason why she acted this way is that because she has no family, feeling a bit underappreciated as a student, wanting to be as good of an influence as the teacher she once had, her desire for a credit she didn't accomplished, and the way she thought that doing things her way would bring the happiness she once had as a student. It's rare to see a movie where a teacher was characterized with depth, as something that you would never see in any other movies for kids.
- Impressive and detailed computer animation by Animal Logic, which is rather ironic since this is the same studio who made Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, The Lego Movie, League of Superpets, and The Magician's Elephant (the latter was also distributed by Netflix).
- Unlike other movies that delivers the same positive messages over and over again that felt forced and tagged-on (notable examples like A Troll in Central Park, Norm of the North, The Emoji Movie, and Beauty and the Beast: Belle's Magical World), this movie's messages works here because it put these messages in real-life scenarios about these kids' struggles and how to correct their mistakes by finding out what cause the kids behave like this in the first place. Not only does it allows the kids who watch this felt related, but it also helps the message it tries to give feel justified and touching instead of felt a bit forced and shoving down your throats.
- At times, this movie can be really funny, such as the scene where one of the students mentioned that the Magic Land Park was banned in Europe, and then the teacher said, "Yes, but not in Florida."; or the other scene where Leo destroys the Lego model set in slow motion while screaming (in pain) like Godzilla, which is ironic since Leo himself is a reptile, and Godzilla was also a reptile too, making the joke even more funnier.
- Leo's speech "OW! MOTHER OF GODZILLA!" is very funny.
- There's a scene where Leo thinks about the years he had been gone through, seeing the kids from other generations to the day when he's little, was rather interesting and funny to look at.
- Most of the scenes where one of the kids take Leo home and was listening to Leo's advice to these kids was heartwarming and satisfying to watch.
- Even though this movie was a comedy, there are times when the movie had a really good sense of drama.
- Since it was a musical, there are some moments where the characters burst out singing, and some of them can be really entertaining to listen to, such as the scene where the kids sing about the things that they've thought and done when they're much younger.
- "When It's Us" by Tiffany Topol was one of the few songs that are actually decent and catchy to listen to.
- Good sense of pacing.
Bad Qualities
- Leo's voice can be annoying at times.
- Summer, while also a likable character, can also be annoying at times, due to her constant talking.
- While the animation may look impressive, it can look a bit stiff and janky at times, especially when the human characters move.
- Some noticeable product placements, like Cheetos and Lego, although it was used scarcely.
- Squirtle can be an unlikable character at times, mostly because of how he's jealous of Leo always getting the attention by the other kids, although he was a helpful friend and he did apologize to him by giving Leo his shell, which is rather disgusting to look at in a kids movie.
- There's a scene where the lizards his species mentioned that they can live up to 110 years. How come Leo's species can live up to 110 years when an average lizard his species (tuatara) can live up to 100 years? This makes no sense in context, although it was done intentionally for comedic purposes.
- The toddlers in the movie, while intentionally designed like wide-eyed piranhas, can be rather horrifying to look at.
- Mrs. Salinas, while likable, has few amounts of screen time from the start and to the last, although it was justifiable since she's going to have a baby soon.
- The scene where Coach Kimura singing Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae) by Silento doesn't quite aged well, since the main singer Silento was sent to prison by being accused of murdering his cousin.
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 82% of 72 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "Slick animation, catchy songs, and some winning voice work from a cast led by Adam Sandler help Leo strike an uneasy balance between satirical and sweet." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 65 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.