LEO (2023) - Mark Reviews Movies

Leo, Netflix

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | November 20, 2023

Good jokes have some truth in them, and Leo is filled with plenty of good jokes, based on a decent and surprising amount of truth. The smart thing about the screenplay is how it finds ways to take some of those jokes to a next step. If an animated film about a talking lizard can be called such, the wise thing about co-director Robert Smigel, star Adam Sandler, and Paul Sado's screenplay is how it uses most of its humor as a means of exploring and teaching some good lessons.

Oh, they're really good lessons, too—not in that cheesy sort of way of what's right and what's wrong, how to be proper and helpful, or why it's so important to listen to one's parents and other people in some kind of authority. This is a film from a bunch of comedians, after all, with Sandler and Smigel best being known for a few decades of low-brow and/or juvenile exercises in humor. Now, though, they're older, and it shows here in the best of possible ways.

One probably wouldn't have expected this kind of film from Sandler in the days when the foundation of his comedy seemed be yelling and putting on a goofy voice. As the talking lizard Leo, the actor still puts on a silly voice, but it's quite endearing this time around, either because it feels as if it has been a while since Sandler pulled such schtick (Absence allegedly makes one fond of things) or because there's more to this vocal performance than, well, the voice itself.

Whatever the reason, Sandler's Leo, a school's pet lizard who undergoes an existential crisis and accidentally falls into becoming the best teacher a group of kids ever had or might ever have, is a solid joke, a sympathetic character, and a wholly convincing means of communicating some practical advice. Who would have thought it?

The story begins as a fairly limited gimmick, in that it imagines the small world of a fifth-grade classroom from the perspective of the class pets. They're Leo and turtle Squirtle (voice of Bill Burr), who have spent decades in the same terrarium, placed on the same shelf in the same room, for essentially their entire lives. The two have seen a lot of kids, a lot of trends and fads, several teachers, and plenty of drama pass them by in this classroom.

It's only when one of the new kids points out that a lizard of Leo's species have a life-expectancy of 75 that he even thinks about how long he has been here. After pulling a fire alarm to get some help from a rabbit in a younger class (Leo and Squirtle have only learned fractions), Leo realizes he's 74. He hasn't even had a life, and now, his is about to come to an end. What's a lizard to do?

The arrival of demanding substitute teacher Ms. Malkin (voice of Cecily Strong) and her command that a kid takes one of the pets home every weekend gives Leo the potential opportunity to escape to the wider world. While making an escape attempt, though, he's caught by Summer (voice of Sunny Sandler), a non-stop talker of an only child, and accidentally lets it slip that he can talk. Leo discovers that this girl is as lonely and scared as he is, so he offers some helpful advice to, you know, actually let her peers do some of the talking, too. One of the best qualities of a friend, after all, is listening to what your pals have to say.

The rest of the story falls into this pattern, with Leo being taken home by kid after kid, realizing what's bothering each of them, and trying to help all of them overcome their worries and fears and sadness. Much of it is done by way of song, because it's a musical, of course. Those tunes, while not particularly catchy, reflect the manner of each character (Summer's song is an impressively performed eruption of fast syllables) and a certain depth of tone that doesn't sacrifice the humor of the material (One has the class counting backwards through the years of their lives, remembering how easy things were when they were younger). They're memorable on a deeper level than just recalling the melody and lyrics, in other words.

What's refreshing is the pragmatism of these lessons. There's the popular girl Jayda (voice of Sadie Sandler, making this yet another of the star's family-friendly projects that warmly includes his own family), who is overcome by the pressure of having to be perfect for her parents. Maybe, Leo kindly suggests, she and her family are "not that great," and some lowered expectations of what she expects of herself would help to lift the weight. Another kid's worrisome parents have kept up with the times, evolving the concept of helicopter parents to drone ones (leading to some very funny gags with a heartbroken drone), and Leo helps a grieving kid learn on her own why it's healthy to cry, while also getting the class bully to have obtain some self-awareness.

Eventually, Leo's scheme collapses, leading to a third act that sacrifices the sardonic but gentle tone for a lot of hectic action. Even so, the heart of Leo remains strong, while the spry and detailed computer animation shows that co-directors Smigel, Robert Marianetti, and David Wachtenheim, as well as their artistic team, are capable of keeping up with the bigger, more established names in the game of this medium. The film is fun, very funny, and filled with sage advice, which might be communicated in a goofy way but is, nonetheless, wholly sincere.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products