Leo – Perfectly Harmless Animated Family Fare (Early Review)

Leo is a newest animated family comedy debuting this coming week on Netflix and is the second Happy Madison animated production following 2002’s Eight Crazy Nights. Leo tells the story of Leo (Sandler), a lazy 74-year-old lizard who lives in a terrarium of a Florida school classroom alongside his turtle friend Squirtle (Burr). Once the students learn that Leo can talk, they begin bringing him home for a class assignment. Teaching them life lessons and helping them all, he in turn sought to figure out his own place in the world. At the end of the day, Leo is a film that was pretty much made for families and/or audiences who are diehard fans of Sandler. All things considered, it is still a perfectly watchable animated comedy that families will undoubtedly have a good time checking out over the upcoming holiday season or any family night.

If Leo can be described in a single word, it would be fine. The film is a fine and perfectly harmless animated comedy that doesn’t try to be anything more than it is and does a good job at being just that. It is a lot funnier than one might expect it to be and it’s nice that the filmmakers inserted jokes clearly geared towards older audiences in typical Happy Madison fashion while still delivering plenty of enjoyable humor for its younger audiences. Sandler’s inspired and fun voice work as the titular lizard makes a huge difference here as the film would easily have been far less entertaining without him. His voice work fits the character so well and thankfully avoids the easy pitfall of becoming annoying like some of his past work. Burr is also a total delight and perfectly cast and is responsible for some of the film’s biggest laughs as Squirtle, a cranky and sarcastic turtle. While the film’s overarching message is a familiar one that has been explored countless times before in similar family films, it is undeniably heartfelt in its execution this time around.

While there aren’t any major issues or gaping holes within Leo, it’s a bit of a shame that the filmmakers couldn’t come up with a better or at least a more eventful story for its characters. The story itself is okay enough and will play well with younger audiences, however, it also becomes a bit repetitive as each plot beat can be seen from a mile away and only gets worse come isn’t weaker and less funny second half. Meanwhile, in terms of animation, it is serviceable and far from what one would consider poor. However, it is also nothing to write home about and when compared to other recent animated projects, pales in comparison. Its musical numbers are fine for what they are but, for the most part, are mediocre and are destined to be forgotten long after the credits roll.

In the end, Leo may not necessarily be a film to make into a priority once it debuts on Netflix (unless one happens to be a Sandler completionist of course), but in its own right, is a cute watch that one can do a whole lot worse with compared to recent family entertainment offerings. Sandler has had a good year between this, You Are So Not Invited to my Bat Mitzvah, and even Murder Mystery 2 to an extent, and it’s exciting to see him recently branch out into distinct projects. It’s just refreshing to see that his films are finally getting the embrace from critics after so many years of the exact opposite.

still courtesy of Netflix

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Connor Carey

www.connorsmoviereviews.com/