It’s easy to take animated films for granted, aimed mostly at a younger audience as they are, but the amount of work that goes into them is impressive, taking anywhere between four and seven years to complete one 90-minute feature.

With that in mind, it’s no wonder that there are only a few major studios with the infrastructure and talent to produce the majority of these films, such as Disney/Pixar, DreamWorks, Warner Bros. And Sony.

Although this production company has been around for a number of years, it’s not exactly known for family friendly animation; Happy Madison was set up by Adam Sandler, and has produced the good and very bad of his body of work over the years.

This then is their first animated family feature, starring the voice of, you’ve guessed it, Sandler himself.

It’s a big year for a group of students as they enter their final year of elementary school. There’s change in the air however, when they learn their regular teacher is leaving for a while, which means they’ll be getting a substitute teacher.

They think they’re in for an easy last year, being able to misbehave as substitutes never have a clue. But it turns out that Ms. Malkin (Cecily Strong) is no pushover, and that they are all in for one hell of a time.

One of the biggest changes in her regime is that the classroom pets – Leo the lizard (Sandler) and Squirtle the turtle – will need to be taken home for the weekend to be looked after.

This is perfect timing for Leo, who is having an existential crisis, believing that at 74 years old, he has little time left. He sees the time away from class as an opportunity to escape and finally find meaning in his life, hoping to create a legacy of sorts at last.

But when he finds himself in one of the family homes, he soon discovers he doesn’t need to run away to make a difference.

Although this isn’t Happy Madison’s first foray into animation, having produced the questionable Eight Crazy Nights in 2002, which was meant to be aimed at an adult audience, this is an impressive start with a film with far wider, family appeal.

It’s probably helped by the fact the animation side of things was taken care by Netflix Animation, who used Australian Logic. The result is something akin to early Pixar in style, which is no bad thing; it is vibrant, bright and colourful, and yet there are few techniques used here, such a reflections of Leo’s face as he’s carried out in his glass box into the world, that are surprisingly impressive.

And then there’s the script side of things, which as it had Sandler have a hand in writing, wouldn’t necessarily get you excited about it.

But again, it’s surprisingly good, with an impressive amount of emotional depth to it. You have Leo himself, as he is forced to face his own mortality, and then you have the vulnerability of all the children in the class, who are all struggling in their own ways.

The only issue would have been that there is a tendency to burst into song, but as they are fairly brief makes them bearable, and also you kind of have to love songs with this kind of line “I would like to wipe my own butt from time to time”.

And although Sandler himself is the epitome of Marmite, even his performance as an aging lizard is sweet and endearing.

It’s running time of 1:42 is about ten minutes too long, but other than that, Leo is a fantastic introduction into the world of animation for Sandler and his Happy Madison team, competing on the highest level with all the big boys, meaning that Leo could well be a welcome, new name on the animated map.