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Reviews
Leo the Lion (2005)
Absolutely Miserable
This is the second worst movie I have watched in my many years of living only to Brazilian Football Passion, which I hope you've never heard of. I know I said the Little Panda Fighter was second to this, but things have changed since then. Unfortunately, if you are reading this, you have heard of Leo the Lion, and with that being said, there are some things you need to know. Sadly, this site's 1000-word review limit prevented me from writing all my thoughts.
The character of Leo himself is possibly the worst feature of this film in that he took the brunt of the movie's terrible script writers who clearly gave up on trying to make him a cohesive character. Leo the lion, who is set up to be a lovable but sensitive character on an emotional journey of self-identity is in fact a chemically imbalanced emotional basketcase. The purpose of his journey seems to change in his mind throughout the movie, and not in a way that conveys some "quest not the treasure" theme, but more of a "we didn't feel like looking back on what we wrote" one. He talks about finding the Heart of the Jungle, then escaping persecution for his diet, then trying to become a "real lion" (which is a direct contradiction of his original ambitions), then protecting the elephant kids. His unnecessarily dramatic speeches only further confuse the audience. Plus, his song "I'm a Vegetarian", made me want to barf due to the utterly sour rhyme scheme and recurrence of ugly facial contortions exhibited throughout the movie.
Apart from the plot holes created by Leo alone, there are many questions which may come to the minds of those attempting to watch this movie, such as, among others, 'How does an elephant cross a desert it takes other characters half the movie to cross in five minutes?', 'Why does Maximus Elefante beg for Eli Font's (very cheesy name, I might add) forgiveness and then go right back to trying to kidnap and later threatening to murder his wife and children?', and 'Was Uncle Lope just resurrected or was he really asleep?'. Also, everyone knows the first place to look for a place called "The Heart of the Jungle" is in the middle of the desert. There are also plenty of things wrong with the movie's plot that don't pertain to the characters at all, such as the fact that there's no way that a lush rainforest would just burn to the ground like that, and even worse, show no signs of having burned at the end when the wedding happens. Also, isn't it sort of impossible for a lion to live without having some source of meat? I mean, even if it were possible for that to happen, it's still not a good idea to have the line "hunting, who me? It's just not in my genes" in the song "I'm a vegetarian."
Animation, animation, animation. Where do I begin? Could it be that gross cringe those monkeys have on their faces through the entire movie? That ugly face freeze the rhinoceros gets when it looks up at Maximus Elefante? Or how about all those stiff, motionless trees and the flat, textureless ground? Indeed, the animation on this bona fide Weinstein trashterpiece is genuinely rancid and rivaling that of just about any Video Brinquedo movie I can think of. Probably the worst scene animation-wise is when they ride the rainbow into the Heart of the Jungle, making gross faces and insipid sounds that don't match their lips all the way down. The jerky camera work, looking like it could have been filmed with an actual camcorder someone dropped on the way down, only makes the animators' unprofessionalism when developing this scene more painfully obvious. Also, if you watch this film, don't say I didn't warn you about the elephant-lion hybrids.
Now, the voice acting of a movie is difficult to describe in a paragraph. The best I can try to do is give you some generic adjectives to work with. It is lifeless, emotionless, often difficult to listen to without pulling out your hair with disgust, and entirely devoid of any sufficient delivery whatsoever. I'll have to leave it at that. If you would like to experience this for yourself, get on Netflix and look this thing up. I literally dare you.
Finally, what makes the movie even more sub-par in quality is the lack of adequate music. It all sounds like easy-listening elevator music generated on a Windows laptop, if not downloaded from some free website somewhere. The instruments simply don't sound anywhere close to being in the realm of real instrumental sound. This includes the music played in Uncle Lope's "death" scene, which evokes zero emotion. Seriously, even though I straight up hated that character who literally referred to himself as 'comic relief', I bet I would have at least felt sorry for him had they played actual music in that scene.The song from the Heart of the Jungle is utterly forgettable, and "I'm a Vegetarian" is supposed to be the musical centerpiece of the movie even when Leo has clearly moved away from the 'vegetarian' theme by the end of the film.
Now, I realize I have kept you for a long time by now, but you simply need to know this stuff. I simply can't live knowing I could be putting some innocent soul through the misery I've endured. One of Weinstein's other movies, Doogal, despite having horrible reviews, holds a special place in my heart as it was the first movie I ever saw in theaters. That being said, this is terrible. I mean come on Weinstein, come on. I really thought you were better than this. This is dismal in every sense of the word. Anyway, I know which way I'm going to run if Weinstein makes "Leo the Lion 2: Maximus Returns", and I hope after reading this you do too.
Ursinho da Pesada (2008)
One of the worst.
Only once in my life have I watched a worse movie than this, and that was Leo the Lion.
First things first, I must point out that my "friend" Logan Jones, whose reviews you can currently find on Leo the Lion and Ivan the Incredible, led me to this garbage movie. I have never known a worse person in my life. Watching this movie was the worst 50 minutes of my entire life, with the worst 80 minutes being those of Leo the Lion.
I'm just going to jump right into my many complaints. Starting off, animation-wise, I could have done better in my garage. Essentially, this movie is animated like a terrible computer game created by a classroom of high school students somewhere. No, no it isn't. That would be a major insult to every high school student who has ever tried computer animation even once. This movie exhibits slow, stiff animation which is capitalized upon by characters with three fingers, pixelated shadows, repetitive elevator music playing through the entire thing, Polaris's chest changing shape three times, and three, count 'em, three scenes in which Pancada clocks in at a trim fourteen seconds to get from Polaris's door to his desk. Also, the movie makes a point of filming Pancada as he takes a long twenty-one seconds to cross a small bridge.
Now, word on the acting and script writing. The script sounds like it was written in about thirty minutes and is acted out with zero emotion. The gap between lines is either non-existent or five seconds long. They also use off-brand expressions such as 'no skin off my back' and 'what a cry and shame' which I have only used conversationally with Logan Jones since watching this movie. The script is extremely predictable and yet you'll find yourself hating it even more for how non-chalantly it is delivered. Of course, to truly understand how disgusting this script and acting are, you'll have to watch it yourself, but at your own risk.
Finally, I must point out the movie's many plot deficiencies. This bear Pancada goes through the whole movie talking about how 'I want to be a dancer' and he plays this 'dancer caught in a fighter's world' kind of part, so he tries out for dancing and fails, moving on to learning to box, (and on a side note, why have it in this martial arts setting and make it all about boxing and dancing???) which leaves you wondering what that whole dance fiasco was about, and then that Sheafoo guy tells him that 'fight how you dance' stuff which makes no sense since his dancing evidently sucked. So then he goes to fight in a match Polaris had no reason not to fight (because somehow everyone thought his entire stature changed and that Polaris dressed as him was now him) and loses that as well. So we know he's a complete loser at this point when we learn that Polaris had bet all his money AGAINST him, making Polaris rich. Finally I must ask: What sick, twisted message does THAT send to whatever kid watches this? So by looking at the DVD cover and even hearing the title you know this is trying to rip off Kung Fu Panda, using the exact same misty valley imagery as in Kung Fu Panda (which, by the way, never appears in this movie itself) and having Pancada striking virtually the same pose on the cover, but, I ask you, just how well did this cheap ripoff live up to the original?