LEO: 4 STARS. “a kinder, gentler Sandler than the one who fought Bob Barker.”
You don’t expect a healthy dose of existentialism from a family friendly musical, but the new Netflix animated film “Leo” is not your normal family friendly musical.
Adam Sandler voices Leo, a 74-year-old lizard facing his own mortality. He has lived most of his life in a Central Florida fifth-grade classroom terrarium with his best pal, curmudgeonly turtle Squirtle (Bill Burr). It’s a pretty cushy existence. They are fed and looked after as they spend school year after school year observing the student’s behavior.
The action begins at the beginning of a school term. “Another year,” says Squirtle, “another batch of fifth grade head cases.”
The new year brings with it a new substitute teacher, the hard-nosed Miss Malkin (Cecily Strong). She calls the laptops the kids use “toys,” bans them from the classroom and is not averse to whipping a Ninja star at a misbehaving student. “In a classroom,” she says, “sometimes the old ways are the best ways.”
She also implements a new school project. “I hope everyone has met our class pets, Leonardo and Squirtle,” she says. “This year, every student has to take home a class pet.” In an exercise to learn responsibility, the kids must feed and care for Leo and Squirtle, and return them the next day healthy and happy.
When Leo learns the life expectancy for lizards is 75 years, he feels like the clock is ticking. He decides to make the most of the time he has left, break his lifelong rule, and let the children hear him speak. When the kids take him home, he becomes a service reptile and teaches them life lessons. “It’s about sharing my 74 years of wisdom to help these kids with their issues,” he says, “like breaking up with a drone or having hand me down pants.”
He helps the kids and in return, they give him purpose.
“Leo” is a simple, sweet natured film that plays like a mash-up of “Billy Madison” and “Charlotte’s Web.” It is asinine and sublime in equal measure, an entertaining mix of Sandler’s trademark low-brow humor and poignant life lessons for kids and parents.
The songs are spirited, and often quite funny—Sandler does Sondheim lite with “Don’t cry/it’s really annoying”—and while they may not stick in your head after the closing credits roll, the tunes support the film’s themes of listening and learning. The best of the bunch being “Extra Time,” a funny song that convinces a rich, entitled girl that she is not all that.
The voice work is fun. Sandler does Sandler, both silly and sensitive, and finds a good comedic foil in Burr, while the rest of the cast, including Strong, Jason Alexander, Jo Koy, Kevin James and two Sandler family members, daughters Sunny and Sadie, hand in lively performances.
“Leo” presents a kinder, gentler Sandler than the one who got into an on-screen fight with beloved game show host Bob Barker in “Happy Gilmore.” It could sit on the shelf next to the comedian’s last film, “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” in that it’s a movie that understands young people and how they think. Tackling everything from helicopter parents (or, in this updated version, Drone Parents), insecurity, bullying and coping with divorce, it’s an after-school-special style story that encourages kids to talk about their feelings, and teachers and parents to hear them. It could’ve been preachy, but the messages are delivered with a smile on the face, and a song on the lips.
