{"id":3820,"date":"2024-04-09T15:00:34","date_gmt":"2024-04-09T21:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=3820"},"modified":"2024-03-22T21:14:12","modified_gmt":"2024-03-23T03:14:12","slug":"movie-leap-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/09\/movie-leap-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Leap! (2016)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/d\/da\/Ballerina_%282016_film%29.png\" alt=\"Leap!\" width=\"220\" height=\"300\" \/>Leap!<br \/><\/u><\/strong>Year: 2016<br \/>Rating: PG<br \/>Length: 89 minutes \/ 1.48 hours<\/p>\n<p>In searching for movies to watch with my daughter, I figured <em>Leap!<\/em> (2016) was a good fit since she is actively interested in dance\/ballet. She seemed to enjoy it, but I wasn\u2019t entirely impressed. I\u2019m willing to give animated films a try when they aren\u2019t from big studios with lots of gravitas, but this one felt just generic enough as to be almost indistinguishable from the swath of cheap direct-to-streaming fare that clogs these services. I will grant that the animation looks pretty good for 2016, but visuals aren\u2019t the only thing that makes these kinds of movies tick.<\/p>\n<p>The story in <em>Leap!<\/em> is mostly your generic \u201cfollow your dreams\u201d fare that most movies directed at kids have done before. Common tropes of persevering and working hard are here, as usual, but with the slightly more troubling trope of lying to catch a break. Sure, gatekeeping isn\u2019t a great way to discover new talent, but when the success of an underdog is pinned on a few moments of dishonesty, it spoils the eventual success they receive\u2014not to mention the almost required third act reveal that the main character has been deceiving everyone until now.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s frustrating here is there was potential for a better movie here, but it\u2019s held back by the cheap laughs that kids will give it. Victor\u2019s (Nat Wolff) plotline felt almost forgotten for most of the film until it suddenly comes into play at the end. If he was more involved with F\u00e9licie (Elle Fanning) training to be a ballerina, it would have been less frustrating than him being pulled away through ridiculous means every time when the two of them get close. Still, if you\u2019re looking for something to pass the time with your kids, <em>Leap!<\/em> can easily fit the bill.<\/p>\n<p>An OK animated film filled with lots of generic tropes, I give <em>Leap!<\/em> 3.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/bmw-the-critic\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"820\" height=\"312\" src=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2968\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2.jpg 820w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-300x114.jpg 300w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-768x292.jpg 768w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-640x244.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leap!Year: 2016Rating: PGLength: 89 minutes \/ 1.48 hours In searching for movies to watch with my daughter, I figured Leap! (2016) was a good fit since she is actively interested in dance\/ballet. She seemed to enjoy it, but I wasn\u2019t entirely impressed. I\u2019m willing to give animated films a try when they aren\u2019t from big [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,1199,2],"tags":[3673,9,3672,3159,3674,394,3671,13,8,3675],"class_list":["post-3820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-0-stars","category-animated","category-movie","tag-1880s","tag-9","tag-ballerina","tag-ballet","tag-dance","tag-france","tag-leap","tag-movie","tag-review","tag-the-nutcracker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3820"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3827,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3820\/revisions\/3827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}