Leap!

In 19th century France, an orphan waif (voiced by Elle Fanning) escapes from her country orphanage with her best friend, an aspiring inventor (Nat Wolff in the U.S., Dane DeHaan elsewhere), to become a dancer with the Paris Ballet. Splat! would have been a better title; this dreary, lifeless little Canadian animated feature falls flat on its face time and again. Writers Éric Summer (who also directed with Éric Warin), Laurent Zeitoun, and Carol Noble haul out all the moldy clichés of the Follow Your Dream Movie (Pre-Teen Division), cobwebs and all, and combine them with a total lack of story sense and an appalling grasp of history. The result is a sort of Flashdance for the Teletubbies set, not as obnoxiously atrocious as The Nut Job 2 (let’s hope that record stands for a while), but really no better. J.L.