How An Adam Sandler Comedy Beat Disney (Leo Review)

You know Disney is in some real sh*t when an Adam Sandler comedy of all things beats what's supposed to celebrate their 100th anniversary.

Can we just talk about the kindergarteners for a second? Designs are funny as shit and they’re so chaotically realistic 💀

Leo was a movie a really original premise and heartfelt storytelling. Wish was a weak cash grab without anything new to say. I’ll definitely recommend Leo over Wish any day.

I can’t believe we live in a world where an Adam Sandler Movie is better than a Disney Movie.

The fact that an animated Adam sandler, strait to Netflix film, is better then the literal 100 year anniversary of a film company!

It’s kind of clever to cast Adam Sandler as an old animal with tons of knowledge and wisdom; both jokingly and literally. I hope Adam Sandler makes a comeback after this movie and makes better films, and if he decides to retire after this film; I’d be happy he ended off with this movie.

Adam always makes the movies he wants to make. It literally doesn't matter to him if people like them or not. He has his crew of friends and he makes movies with them because he likes his friends. Not to mention he married once and hasn't divorced. The guy is living the best life even though people shit on him all the time. He has proven he can play serious roles but won't do them too often because he doesn't like them. He's an anomaly in the fake ass industry of Hollywood.

Leo wasn’t perfect but it felt like it meant well and most of all was memorable and interesting. The same could never be said for Wish.

Okay, you know what won me over? The treatment of the TEACHER. As you mentioned, adults in kids' films can...be handled badly if not written well and not written as characters. While the relationship with Leo and the kids is key to the movie, it does one thing that a lot of movies don't, including Disney (INCLUDING WISH); allowing an adult character to have problems and not be set in stone as evil for it nor as the person to defeat because 'kids rule, adults drool'. In a world so cynical and set out to 'teach people lessons', this one does a lesson that so many bad films (LIKE WISH) ignore; EVERYONE HAS A STORY and everyone needs a chance to get it out. The teacher feeling like a failure in her age because she didn't feel like she lived up to the teacher she looked up to and cared about is what I think is the moment for the adults because as much as we go on about how kids need someone to lean on and to talk to as well as to encourage, is the same sort of things actually given towards adults? We hear all the same rhetoric about therapy and shit but sometimes, it's not 'therapy' that a lot of adults need. A lot of adults need ENCOURAGEMENT, reminders that they still matter in this world and that they can still do something good to help someone else, no matter how small. If anything, I think Leo handled a lot of the classic Disney feel good formulas better than Disney itself because looking in the past few years, you can tell that there is a lot of bitterness and overall 'move aside' feelings in a lot of their movies towards characters that aren't 'the special ones'. I think Strange World is a good example of this because despite how it claims to be a movie about family, it comes off more that the filmmakers are saying that everyone from the 'old generation' (aka our parents/grandparents) are out of touch and mean and unemotional because they're not 'enlightened' like the current day because anything from over 30 years ago is evil or some shit. Enter Leo who presents the Teacher JUST AS THAT...only to allow her to SHOW US what is bothering her, why she feels upset, and why it is effecting her in the present. And from there, they WORK on that. They don't fucking shame her and 'put her in her place' like so many of these awful preachy Disney movies/shows have done. They allow her to be human...BECAUSE SHE'S FUCKING HUMAN. Her being an adult doesn't remove her emotions, her wants, her dreams. Do you KNOW how good that feels, JS? DO YOU?!

I love how the theme of this year (technically earlier with puss in boots 2) is how literally everyone, EVERYONE including illumination and a talking animal adam sandler movie is beating the tar out of disney who’s been content on just consistent lukewarm quality with rarely any real artistic vision or ambition behind it (makes the renaissance era seem like a happy accident ngl)

The animation Leo can be clunky and the character designs do look generic for 3D animation. However, what I enjoyed about Leo was how the kid characters were written to behave like ACTUAL children: those who have genuine problems actual kids can have (feeling left out, having to mask insecurities, etc)

The fact that Leo beat disney's 100th anniversary movie, let me be clear A NETFLIX ADAM SANDLER MOVIE BEAT DISNEY'S 100TH ANNIVERARY FILM! It just shocks me.

Leo got everything right about elementary school, from that one kid flipping his eye lids, the pets being named after characters, and my favorite thing, the gym teacher listening to stuff like watch me whip and wobble. I swear that was the same kind of stuff they played in PE

Adam Sandler triumphing over a f**king Disney movie, what universe are we in???

i had low expectations for the film, and while the film didn't really prove those expectations extremely wrong, the film was a warm and wholesome story that really I wished most teachers would realise the impact of helping children other than academics and actually living up to their role as a "second parent"

Leo was such a heartwarming and funny movie. The fact that a 100 anniversary DISNEY movie did worse than a netflix Adam sandler lizard movie is shocking. 2023 really has been a year

Leo genuinely made me emotional, and even though it had a huge cast of characters, all of them felt fleshed out and unique in their own way. Every kid in the class was their own person. Meanwhile, I barely remember half the characters in wish aside from the horrible goat and Asha herself, and King MAGNIFICO was my favorite solely bc you can tell Chris Pine had the time of his life voicing the character

When I rewatched Leo I noticed that from the very start of the movie there was a spot at the base of his tail that was gray and flaking like when reptiles shed their skin and that it's there for more or less the entire movie, so it was nice continuity, and I also loved how Leo not only channeled that grampa energy but definitely had the grandpa look to a "T" ( not including the lizard attributes ).

You know it's hilarious when a Netflix animated movie starring Adam Sandler does what Disney's Wish failed to do: making a well-written film with heart and properly focusing on the message of problem-solving through communication

Both of these films are groundbreaking in their own special way. Leo is groundbreaking for being one of the first times a film with Adam Sandler in it managed to out perform a Disney film critically. Wish is groundbreaking for being the first ever film, animated or not, to have song lyrics generated by AI. Which one sounds like a bigger accomplishment?