Leo the Lion (Movie)
NOTE: Not to be confused with the video game from 1996.
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 i'M a VeGeTaRiAn11!
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Leo the Lion (Italian: La Storia Di Leo) is a 2005 Italian animated adventure musical film directed by Mario Cambi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Pierstefano Marangoni. It stars Neri Marcorè, Leo Gullotta and Carlo Conti. The film follows Leo, a lion who exhibits a vegetarian diet which causes him to be an outcast among his pride.
Produced by Dujass Film, the film was originally released on June 17, 2005 in Italy. In the United States, an English-dub of the film was released onto Netflix by The Weinstein Company on July 18, 2013.
Plot
In the African savannas, Leo struggles to fit in his pride. While hunting for zebras with the other lions, Leo's mother dies by falling over a waterfall on the day he goes for his first hunt. After that traumatic experience, he develops a fear of water. Being bullied by the other lions, he leaves them and starts living in a tree. One day he meets Savannah the elephant and helps her deliver her twin baby elephants. It is later mentioned that her husband, Eli Phant, was killed by humans. However, it is revealed that he was actually knocked out by a white elephant named Maximus Elefante and then taken to a zoo. After the delivery, the little calves consider him to be their father and follow him constantly. When Leo decides to find the Heart of the Jungle, a place Leo's mother once told him about before she died, he is accompanied by the elephants and Uncle Lope the antelope. They meet many other young animals on their quest, such as a young zebra.
After having lots of adventures, they eventually find the Heart of the Jungle, which is also the home of a chameleon. The latter allows to three orphans, a leopard cub and a duo of monkeys, to stay in her place. On the way back, Maximus, who was following the company, finds the two baby elephants, kidnaps them and later claims he saved them from Leo, the "evil" lion. Maximus then tries to marry Savannah, but Leo turns up at the last moment and stops the wedding. Suddenly, a helicopter appears and captures Maximus. The movie finishes by showing Leo talking to his children, two elephant/lion hybrids.
Why It's Not a Vegetarian
- Terrible CGI animation, especially for 2000s standards. Not only does it look unfinished, but it also causes the character's movements look highly unnatural.
- Speaking of the characters, their actual designs are very ugly-looking and don't help the already terrible animation. Leo looks sickly skinny, Shaman looks much to human-like for an animal, and the elephant/lion hybrid cubs seen at the end of the movie certainly take the cake due to their absolutely uncanny and hideous designs (although this is probably to be expected, as their hybrids of two completely different animals so, unlike general animal hybrids, there's a very low chance of them actually not looking at least a bit off).
- The designs of the backgrounds are also very dull and little more than generic desert backgrounds with nothing new nor interesting being done with them.
- Most of the characters come off as bland and uninteresting, such as Savannah, Shaman, and Goo Roo/Beatrice.
- Maximus Elefante is a very weak and bland villain due to the fact that he has no real motive other than "being evil". He even kills Eli Phant for no apparent reason besides marrying his wife, which is flat-out evil and very disturbing.
- The movie tries to add in some slow-motion, but it makes it look like each scene is being stretched out for no apparent reason.
- Tons of plot holes scattered everywhere.
- The voice acting, while it clearly does have some heart put into it, is still incredibly annoying, as many of the characters have these screechy, high-pitched, and obnoxious voices. Not helped by the fact that there are certain moments that just have out-of-place dialogue/sounds from the characters or a bunch of characters all talking over each other at once.
- There are two monkeys who make an introduction to Leo and then appear briefly in random scenes, serving a filler role.
- Sone unintentionally unsettling moments. Such as the chameleon in the "Heart of the Jungle" song constantly changing heads while singing, which is just very weird and even somewhat creepy.
- Mindbogglingly insane and nonsensical logic. Despite the fact that felines, lions included, are obligate carnivores (meaning that they MUST eat meat to get the nutrients they need), Leo is a vegetarian. No wonder why he looks so sickly! Also highly impossible and nonsensical is the fact that Savannah was able to have elephant/lion hybrid children despite the fact that elephant and lion DNA are WAY too different to make such hybrids possible.
- The movie felt like it's overall existence was little more than an attempt to cash in on the success of The Lion King. As it's another generic film about lions (albeit one that doesn't have much to do with the Disney film but still).
- Bad lip-syncing that very rarely will even come close to matching what the characters are actually saying.
- As the reviewer SaberSpark pointed out in the below video, blurring some portions and only hearing the dialogue makes the film sound blatantly pornographic.
- Plot Hole: The Heart of the Jungle isn't even in the Jungle, which doesn't make a lot of sense.
- Awful musical numbers, especially Maximus' villain song which is a blatant rip-off of "Be Prepared" from The Lion King.
- There is no good comedy or humor in this film, unless you can laugh at how the humor is.
Redeeming Qualities
- Both Leo and Maximus Elefante are surprisingly likable characters.
- Additionally, according to the film's YMMV page on TV Tropes, Maximus is incredibly popular, mainly due to his motif of an Electric Guitar, and his voice actor.
- Despite the bad voice acting, the voice actors somehow did put emotion into this movie.
- The original Italian dub is a slight improvement.
- Leo shows that you should never judge a book by its cover (or a Lion by its teeth).
Videos
Comments
- 2000s films
- 2010s films
- Family films
- Animated films
- Animal films
- Musical films
- Low-budget films
- Independent films
- Rip-off films
- Foreign films
- Adventure films
- Italian films
- Weinstein films
- Films aware of how bad they are
- Films with lions
- Films reviewed by SaberSpark
- Obscure films
- Films for free on YouTube
- Featured on TV Tropes' So Bad, It's Horrible
- Films with content inappropriate for their target audiences
- Bad media
- Bad films