Young Leonardo Da Vinci and Lorenzo are having fun with their friend Lisa. Her home burns down while they are away. Leo hopes to help her family rebuild. He is joined by Lisa as they set off on a quest.

The Italian animation is really only second rate. It's more comparable to present-day TV productions. The designs are fine for that level of production. As for the characters, Leo is a little naive. Quite frankly in real life, he would probably use his mechanical know-how to help rebuild the house. The story is somewhat random. They could have gone on the treasure hunt without burning down the house. Better yet, the treasure could be some sort of long lost invention. This is definitely trying to be Goonies. I don't even want to figure out all the logic problems. It's cute but it's not actually good. It feels flat.

For all those who think they're going to watch "Leo Da Vinci: Mission Mona Lisa" with the intention of it being an accurate historical account aginst one of the most brilliant minds of 15th century, the question I ask is, what were you thinking? For the record this is a fictional kid-friendly adventure of the teenage prodigy Leonardo Da Vinci who would later become an artist/inventor who was the heart and sole of the Renaissance Period. The plot has the boy genius Leo Da Vinci (Johnny Yong Bosch) using his never-sleeping brain to help his love interest Lisa (Charami Leigh) obtain money after her father's farm had been demolished by an inferno and placed in an arraged marriage. Being that it was set in a moment in history far beyond our time, many young kids may not understand the apparatuses that were utilized in that time period. You have inventions like self-moving carts, pre-Wright Brother's flying machines, a giant weather balloon and underwater breathing machines which might be archaic by modern standards, but were trailblazers in the Renaissance Period. We all that Da Vinci's brain isn't just through his inventions, but was also brilliant on an artistic standpoint too. His most famous works include the aforementioned Mona Lisa and the Vitruvian Man (though you won't find any private parts here). There's no heavy anounts of violence though there is a lot of risks at stake, scary sharks, sword-happy pirates and sunken ships that may contain mysteries that are both exciting albeit creepy. But the dire situations tend to get washed away quickly once a musical number takes part. In one scary but particularly cool scene we see a pirate stick a burning flaming match in his mouth which results in him exhaling a huge puff of cloud-like smoke. For all the kids watching that, I wouldn't recommend you to copy that.

Going for a kid-friendly approach, "Leo Da Vinci: Mission Mona Lisa" follows the teenage Leonardo Da Vinci as he tries to help his love interest Lisa who has now gone broke after her father's farm was demolished by an aggressive fire. With his advanced intelligence and his determination, he uses his gift to retrieve a lost treasure located at the bottom of the sea. But getting in a way of his quest (Da Vinci's quest get it?),a band of evil pirates are after the treasure, Leo will rely on his intelligence and skill to overcome the pirates, retrieve the treasure and help Lisa's family from bankruptcy and her being placed in an arranged marriage.

By making our hero with the gift of knowledge and artistic merit to his credit, seemed like an original and brilliant idea. The thing that holds this movie back is due to the muddled computer graphic algorithums that pay tribute to one of humanity's most brilliant minds. Though his brian functions on both sides of his head very splendidly, "Leo Da Vinci: Mission Mona Lisa" doesn't really educate the kids in his many contributions he helped shape the world we live in to this very day. It still serves as a catalyst to the myriad of his material that would come into development in the future, it's just a backdrop to the intentions this film is about. To this kids, it's very entertaining, but the education value it's not fully in tact. When da Vinci comes up with an apparatus to help him breathe underwater, kids will likely be intrigued by his ingenuity and might even inspire young kids today to become inventors in the future. But its priority is still dependent on da Vinci using his survival instinct to defeat an band of priate led by a discount Captain Hook.

The writing is quite below average, though the youngsters watching won't really know the difference. That combined with the vestigal animation, it looks like something you might see from a Disney Junior channel with some elements of imagination and adventure although not very advanced. Sure the targeted story was aimed from pre-teens, but the intentions ended appealing more towards elementary school children from the lower grades. But for the adults who'll watch this movie, well forget it, you won't find anything of interest here. Though this movie might make a great free babysitter for the young ones. I'm not going to say it's a complete failure, I just think the kids will enjoy for entertainment, but don't expect them to get any education out of it. If you want a film based on the true genius of Leonard Da Vinci check out the 2003 mini-series documentary "Leonardo" starring British actor Mark Rylance as the titular character.

This movie has a lot of problems. Small kids might still find some fun in it but I'd definitely not recommend watching this.

There is horrible pacing - everything seems rushed to the next action scene; there hardly is time to let previous scenes sink in.

Without spoiling too much: The antagonist's plan is overly and unnecessarily complex - which is a good fit to the protagonists not grasping the situation earlier. They also often act when it is convenient to the plot - instead of the moment it would make sense from their perspective.

There are some moments which would make good "funny background scenes" but instead are pushed to the foreground and just feel lost there.

The movie isn't very nice to the female characters. They have not been given an active role. "Mona Lisa" being listed as "mission" in the title is a good reminder that she simply is a token / MacGuffin / tagalong.

At some point the movie decides that it wants to be partial-musical and throws out-of-nowhere songs at the viewers. Paired with the flashbacks this seems like padding the time - and I don't consider the songs to be very good, either.

Regarding the educational aspect: There is some "da Vinci invented this" and "da Vinci painted that" thrown in - but apart from one invention and the girl being named "Mona Lisa", there was zero need to tie this to the great inventor.

On the positive side: The animation is okay and some jokes are funny (even in their childish way). It's not the worst kids' movie out there - but if you have better ones available, you should prefer those.