It also bears the pedigree of a French entertainment conglomerate, Gaumont, and its technical credits are filled with Gallic names. This story of a plucky orphan from Brittany who tries to make it as a ballet star in Paris is set almost 150 years ago, and lacks magic, talking animals, pop culture references that will be dated six months from now, and other tics common to so American-made cartoon features done in the Pixar-DreamWorks-BlueSky mold.
The mediocre film in question is “Leap!,” the title of which will henceforth be typed without the exclamation point, because exclamation points are not only typographically irritating but emblematic of a shallow hucksterism that undercuts the entire project.
The emotional and visual power of dance is so great that even a mediocre film can stoke our affection merely by showing it.
