The plot and chronology in Leap!, an animated ballet story, are utterly unbelievable.

Ballet: It’s not that difficult, anyone can do it – and I’m talking world-class ballet, not gradeschoolers twirling in tutus – as long as they really want to. Everyone knows this.

That forms the unbelievable basis of the plot in Leap. It’s why it’s so easy for Felicie (the voice of Elle Fanning), a tween orphan in late-1880s France who runs away to a Disney-esque Parisland, to lie and cheat her way into a ballet school at the prestigious Paris Opera.

She goes on to get cast in a production of The Nutcracker and perform – without the benefit of a single rehearsal. All at the Paris Opera, one of the preeminent ballet companies on the planet. No sweat. Anyone could manage it. If you’ve got heart, of course. Who needs years of practice when you’ve got passion?

Soaring pop songs celebrate Felicie’s “triumphs” at every step along the way. She is following her bliss! She’s “gonna be somebody,” the obnoxiously aggressive pop soundtrack cries. Nothing else matters! Not integrity or honesty, that’s for sure. After all, it was mean girl Camille (the voice of Maddie Ziegler) – a nasty spoiled rich kid – whose spot at the school Felicie stole, so it’s all good, right?

Did I mention that Felicie is a terrible dancer who hasn’t got the first idea what ballet involves, yet she keeps getting second and third chances to “prove” herself?

If I had to reach to find something positive to say about Leap! – and I do have to reach, like even a well-trained ballerina at the bar – it would be this: Boys have gotten to see their mediocre peers succeed on-screen since forever. Now mediocre girls have the opportunity get reinforcement of the wild ambitions they hold, and reassurance that they won’t have to work much, or at all, to achieve them. Those girls will of course be terribly disappointed when life does not hand them everything they wish for just because they wished for it, but hey: progress?

This cheesy French/Canadian ballerina-porn cartoon doesn’t only feature the worst possible message for any little girl (or boy) who dreams of the physically demanding life wearing the tutu.

It also employs animation that resembles mid-2000s videogame cut scenes, and is rife with corny humor, including fart jokes, crotch injuries and slapstick, as well as some cringe-worthy dialogue. It’s anachronistic, too, in ways that are baffling and appear to serve no purpose. When Felicie and her inventor friend Victor (the voice of Nat Wolff) arrive in Paris, the first thing they see is the Eiffel Tower under construction, and the precise height of the tower sets this movie squarely in early 1888.

Yet Felicie runs around Paris wearing little denim shorts, which didn’t yet exist. Even if they had, no girl would have dared to wear such a thing in that century. The Nutcracker didn’t premiere until 1892, in Russia, and it was a flop; it didn’t debut in Western countries until the 1940s. (The ballet costumes also seem to hail from a much later date.)

Gramophone recordings of music from the ballet would certainly not have been available in Paris, nor would the sort of gramophone we see here. There’s an appearance by a motorcycle that appears to date from the World War I era. Via Victor’s job at the studio of Tower designer Gustav Eiffel, we see pieces of his other famous work: the Statue of Liberty, under construction – even though its parts were already in New York at this point, and which certainly had not yet turned green from oxidation of its copper skin.

It’s not meant to be a historically accurate film, but it’s too easy to pick apart a work of fiction with this many glaring holes. The laziness of the writing in that regard, as well as the uninspiring dialogue, is at least as frustrating to watch as the bungled follow-your-dreams message.

At least the animation is colorful and will probably appeal to many kid viewers (regardless of the fact that it’s low-quality), and there’s the inevitable heart-tugging that happens in a movie that gets at the ever-widening gap between rich and poor.

It’s just frustrating to see unrealistic dreams presented as a real way of closing that gap.

I’m not sure which is worse: my suspicions that the anachronisms are the accidental product of ignorant writers, or my other suspicion that they are deliberate for dramatic effect, so that, for instance, there can be a chase sequence up and around the Statue of Liberty’s bits and pieces.

An action sequence in a movie about a little girl dreaming of being a dancer? Sure, that’s always a part of ballet’s artistic process.

Leap! H Directed by Eric Summer and Eric Warin • Starring Elle Fanning, Dane DeHaan, Carly Rae Jepsen • Rated PG • 89 min. • At Maya Cinemas, Lighthouse Cinemas, Century Cinemas Del Monte