2017 is going to be a pretty strong year for animated flicks. We’ve got The LEGO Batman Movie, Coco, Captain Underpants and Cars 3, all of which look quite good. Then there’s Leap!, which looks….not so good. Coming to us from The Weinstein Company, the film will star Elle Fanning as an “11-year-old orphan who arrives in 1870s Paris and enters a school for ballerinas in hopes of starring in The Nutcracker.”
A new trailer for the movie was released this past weekend and while we’re certainly on board with the cast (co-starring is Dane DeHaan), Leap! looks awfully generic and dull, falling into just about every cliche you can think of. Admittedly, early reviews from overseas haven’t been too bad, but we’re struggling to find much worth getting excited about here. There may be enough to hold the attention of the youngsters, but beyond that, Leap! doesn’t look to offer a whole lot and we can already imagine how it’ll all play out.
That being said, trailers aren’t always representative of the final product and the animation looks polished and slick – so perhaps it’s not a total loser. But still, with so many great animated films arriving over the next 12 months, Leap! is going to need to do a lot to stand out, and from the footage presented here, it just doesn’t seem like it’ll be able to.
Leap! will dance into theaters on March 3rd, 2017. Take a look at the trailer above and plot summary below and let us know if you think it’ll make much of an impact on audiences.
Paris, 1884. An orphaned girl arrives in Paris from Brittany. Félicie Milliner is 11 and has no money but one big, passionate dream: to become a dancer. With nothing left to lose, Félicie takes a big risk: she ‘borrows’ a spoiled brats identity and enters the Opera Ballet School. But how long can she be someone else? Mentored by the tough and mysterious cleaner, Odette , Félicie learns that talent is not enough – it takes hard work to be better than her ruthless, conniving fellow students. That and friendship. Felicie’s inventive, exhausting and charismatic best friend Victor also has a dream: becoming a famous inventor. Together, they both encourage each other to reach for the stars.
