Witless screenplay, creepy humor distract from colorful animation in 'Leap'
Pixar animated films tend to be intelligent, challenging and educational for children, as opposed to the Weinstein Company's animated Euro-ballerina fantasy "Leap!", which tends to be thoughtless, pandering and rife with historical lapses.
Take the scene where Félicie (voiced by Elle Fanning), an 11-year-old orphan who dreams of becoming a ballerina in 1880s Paris, goes full-throttle "Flashdance" in a dingy tavern patronized by drunk, older guys, one of whom turns out to be the Director of the Opera (Joe Sheridan) auditioning her for a leading role in "The Nutcracker Suite."
The prim Director seems unfazed about being caught in a seedy dive like this. More to the point, he isn't remotely concerned that his 11-year-old student is dancing on kegs and bar stools for a bunch of sloshed Frenchmen late at night by herself.
Sacre bleu! What's the subtext here?
"Leap!" looks pretty and children will be entranced by the animation.
They will neither notice nor care about the lack of thoughtfulness displayed in the screenplay with its clinker modern expressions and cheap, lowbrow laughs generated by passing gas and injuring male genitalia.
"Leap!" begins with Felicie stuck in a soul-stifling orphanage with a smitten pal Victor (Nat Wolff), a boy with dreams of becoming an inventor.
He eventually saves the day with his ingenuity. So why does this movie early on ridicule him for creating a human flying device patterned after chicken wings that can't even fly? Is he smart, or not?
Felicie and Victor escape from the orphanage and its grumpy caretaker, Luteau (a woefully underused Mel Brooks). They arrive in Paris where the Eiffel Tower is under construction and the Statue of Liberty is being assembled nearby. (Eiffel Tower construction began in 1887, a year after the Statue of Liberty opened in New York.)
Felicie befriends Odette (pop star Carly Rae Jepsen), a mysterious cleaning woman at the Paris Ballet who calls her, maybe because she can help the young dancer tour jeté her way into the opera.
Fate intervenes when Felicie obtains an audition invitation intended for the snooty Camille Le Haut (Maddie Ziegler), a rich, spoiled brat who shrieks insults: "You are nothing! I'm a star! You're just orbiting around me!"
Felicie assumes Camille's identity to get into the auditions, then struggles to actually learn ballet overnight.
Camille's conniving mother Regine (vocally finessed by an evil Kate McKinnon) takes dictatorial stage moms to disturbingly horrific levels by chasing Felicie across the crown of the Statue of Liberty (an homage to Alfred Hitchcock's "Saboteur"?) while trying to bash her with a massively heavy sledgehammer.
As Felicie struggles to learn her five ballet positions, Victor secures his own position working with young Mathurin (Tamir Kapelian), who proves that in 2017, movies can still rely on overweight kids stuffing their faces for comic relief.
For the record, Regine's sarcastic reference to Sherlock Holmes ignores the fact that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective first appeared in 1887, a year after the Statue of Liberty arrived in the U.S.
And "The Nutcracker"? That didn't premiere until 1892.
“Leap!”
★ ½
Starring: Elle Fanning, Mel Brooks, Carly Rae Jepson, Nat Wolff, Kate McKinnon
Directed by: Eric Summer and Éric Warin
Other: A Weinstein Company release. Rated PG. 89 minutes