![]() Designed to be sophisticated, from the ballerina’s tutus to thevest of the Director of Opera, they have beautiful flower prints with bright colors and are very visually appealing.The messages of this film is “never give up on your dreams” and “persevere towards your goals.” I give 3.5 out of 5 stars and recommend it for ages 8 to 18. They use multiple areas as their stage and still look skillful and elegant. In one scene, two girls dance side by side and gracefully migrate from the stage to the chairs in the audience, to outside the stage. Although animated, I felt as if I was watching Felicie dance in real life. The ballet choreographer, Benjamin Millepied, wonderfully creates dance masterpieces. The images of the Grand Opera house does true justice to the actual opera house. When Felicie and Victor walk through the streets of Paris, the walls of the different buildings are covered with posters that have been ripped or worn down, the individual bricks or stones that make up the walls and street floors are covered with moss and minuscule cracks which adds to their realistic look. Your tween will probably be too busy humming along to the soundtrack’s girl-power pop tunes, by Jepsen and Sia, to notice.The settings and surroundings are intricately detailed. And there are two fart jokes - just because. Felicie dons denim hot pants at one point, and Camille’s nasty stage mother (Kate McKinnon, who also voices two other parts) actually says, “It’s hammer time.” The sonnet on the Statue of Liberty is referenced, years before it was written. The true beating heart of “Leap!” can be found in their touching relationship as the film winds its way toward a climactic dance-off.įor whatever reason, jarring anachronisms abound. Yet the maestro has little faith in the abilities of the untrained Felicie, who has, as he puts it, “the energy of a bullet and the lightness of a depressed elephant.” As he searches for his Clara for a production of “The Nutcracker,” our heroine finds an unlikely mentor in a lame cleaning woman with a secret past (played by singer Carly Rae Jepson, who provides a surprisingly warm and dramatic vocal presence). ![]() Meanwhile, Felicie finagles her way into the Opera Ballet School by impersonating a snotty rich girl named Camille (Maddie Ziegler), who has intentionally broken Felicie’s cherished music box. When they arrive in Paris, Victor finds a lowly job with engineer Gustave Eiffel, who is in the midst of creating his namesake tower. Where “Leap!” stumbles most is in the story, which is beholden to every underdog tale ever, including “The Karate Kid.” Like other parentless urchins before them, Felicie and Victor - who long to make their way in the outside world - stage an antic escape from their rural orphanage, overseen by a bulbous toad of a man with massive mutton chops (Mel Brooks’s voice, minus the Brooklyn intonations). The usually teeming City of Light, however, seems eerily underpopulated and hushed, save for the main characters, with the animators saving most of their visual magic for delicate lighting effects and soaring rooftop scenes in which Felicie tries out her improvised dance moves, while her pal and fellow orphan Victor (Nat Wolff), a would-be inventor, tests out his pair of mechanical wings.įelicie (Fanning) and her friend and fellow orphan Victor (Nat Wolff). That said, “Leap!” is a step up from Weinstein’s “Shrek”-on-a-budget “ Hoodwinked” films, and it makes the most of its distinctly Old World aesthetic and enticing character design. When it comes to quality, you can’t kid a kid, many of whom have been exposed to such sophisticated recent fare as “ Zootopia,” “Moana” and “Inside Out” (not to mention those glorified Lego ads posing as feature films). ![]() (The Weinstein Company)Īnyone who’s ever dreamed of tutus, tights and toe shoes will likely get a kick out of “Leap!” But the Weinstein Company’s first animated film under the Mizchief banner - the tale of a determined 11-year-old orphan named Felicie (voiced with girlish pluck by Elle Fanning) pursuing ballet in 1879 Paris - is more of a hop than a grand jete in an already competitive cartoon arena. Although “Leap!” has its warm moments and earworm tunes, its story stumbles next to the layered messages of recent children’s films. Elle Fanning voices an orphan, Felicie, who dreams of dancing.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |