Tag Archives: comedy

Leo

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When I started the animated film Leo on Netflix, I did not know it was an Adam Sandler vehicle. Sandler is not one of my favorite actors, to be honest. It seems as if most of his films are the same stupid, immature jokes and he plays the same basic character in all of them. Still, he has had some moments of excellence such as Rare Gems. It wasn’t too long into Leo that I recognized his voice work.

In this movie, Sandler gives his voice to the lizard named Leo. Turned out that all of the animals could speak. Leo, along with Squirtle (Bill Barr), were classroom pets in a 5th grade class. When Leo starts being taken home with the students, he starts talking to them, telling each that he could only speak to them and that they were special.

There are some funny moments. The film does a good job of avoiding the immature humor that I associate with Sandler. There are some heart-warming moments through as well. 

I was surprised that it turned out to be a musical. Most of the songs were catchy and some were clever lyrically. There was nothing very serious, but fun matching the film.

As I said, this was fun and enjoyable. It certainly could have been much worse. There were some childish moments, but nothing that made me cringe as an adult. 

3.75 stars

Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie

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I was both excited and anxious about the new movie on Peacock + called Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie. I loved the TV show Monk and the character of Adrian Monk, as played by multiple EMMY winner Tony Shalhoub. But the title of the movie implied something that I did not want. A last case? It sounded too final for my tastes. I certainly was not ready for a permanent goodbye.

So the Defective Detective fell right into place as the film started. Adrian Monk was still suffering from his compulsions, trying to make money writing a book to pay for Molly (Caitlin McGee),Trudy’s (Melora Hardin) daughter’s, wedding. However, the book was a failure, and we discovered that Adrian Monk was feeling suicidal.

And, once again, I was fearful of how this movie was starting to go.

With the return of Natalie (Traylor Howard), Randy (Jason Gray Stanford), Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine), and Dr. Bell (Hector Elizondo), the show pulled no punches when it came to nostalgia. These actors all slipped easily back into these roles that they spent so many years playing on the TV show Monk. You could feel the connection between them and you were excited to see them.

Still, the key to all of this is Tony Shalhoub, who was perfect as Adrian Monk. He was able to portray both the silliness and depression of the character. He could easily switch from anguish to anxiety at a moments notice. It was as if he had not missed a beat after all of these years.

The story itself was okay at best. I’ve seen better Monk episodes, but this was fine, and the key to this movie was the return of the characters. The film which was very much like the show, a howdidit, much like Columbo episodes. We knew the killer, but Monk was trying to figure out how it happened.

I thought the ending of the movie was just tremendous. I felt as if I was emotionally connecting to the story and came just short of tears filling my eyes.

I really found this Peacock film a pleasure, a treat. These are great characters and it was a welcome return.

4 stars

Dream Scenario

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We got a new Nic Cage movie released this weekend focusing on celebrity and the potential toxicity that comes along with that. It was called Dream Scenario.

Nic Cage played a college professor named Paul Matthews, a hapless man who is just going through an unremarkable life. Then, one day, he discovered that people were all dreaming about him, people that he did not know. Paul would just walk through the dream like an observer, doing nothing to help the person. It got to the point where real life Paul was feeling guilt over not helping despite the fact that he had zero control over it.

As this phenomenon went viral, Paul started to become well known and in demand. This is, until the dreams he was appearing in began to turn dark and nightmarish. The people who were fascinated by Paul before turned on him quickly, forcing Paul into trying to get through his life.

Nicolas Cage was sensational as Paul, playing completely against his typical character. Paul was frumpy and depressed, unable to understand why things were happening and why people were turning on him considering he had done nothing wrong. You can’t help be feel sorry for Paul considering things were happening that were totally out of his own control.

I really enjoyed this film, but I will say that the ending did not strike as well as I would have liked it. Unfortunately, I can’t talk about that without diving into spoilers. Suffice it to say that I did not love the way the film concluded.

There were some funny scenes of the film, which is listed by A24 as a comedy/horror film. I’m not sure that is an accurate classification, but there are several funny moments. Nicolas Cage does great job bringing this schulb to life, and seeing what happens to him is a warning about the fickleness of pop culture as well as a commentary on cancel culture.

3.8 stars