The ‘Paris’ in the animated, 3D family film, A Monster in Paris is the Paris of La Belle Époque –1899, to be exact – and it looks fantastic. The clean and empty cobblestone streets of Montmartre are lined with quaint shops and lovely old houses, and Sacré Coeur sits a top what resembles an Italian hill-top town. The plot, a double love story in which the four lovers are pushed towards one another by a fantasy adventure and absurdist police caper, is derivative, but frequently fun and, at times, charming. Unfortunately, the script, by Director Bibo Bergeron (A Shark’s Tale) and Stéphane Kazandjian doesn’t know what it’s about or how best to get there.

At its heart, and at its best, the film is a would-be musical about a giant flea who escapes from a scientist’s lab at the botanical garden (Le Jardin des Plantes) and ends up boosting the popularity of cabaret singer, Lucille’s (Vanessa Paradis) act. The poor flea has become so big that he looks like a monster, an impression only somewhat diminished when his limbs and face are covered in human clothing. It is Lucille who first discovers the ‘monster’, naming it Francoeur (Honest Heart) and takes pity on it. As if to thank her, he quickly reveals his amazing musical talent.

In the French version, Francoeur is played/voiced by the French singer Mathieu Chedid, who also wrote the film’s songs, but in the English version it’s Sean Lennon. Francoeur’s big song and dance number in Lucille’s cabaret is crazy but terrific. Unfortunately, for some reason, Chedid and Bergeron then introduce more modern music that is not in keeping with the period or the characters.

Equally unfortunate is that the charming central premise is not allowed to develop. In its place at least ten minutes of the film is devoted to car chases and Le Préfet Maynott’s (Danny Huston) increasingly tiresome quest to bolster his image by capturing the monster.

Bergeron and Kazandjian presumably wanted to show how science, technology and the arts were flourishing in Paris at the turn of the century. Those involved in this cultural revolution are the good guys, while the more traditional elements of society (i.e. the police and self-serving politicians) represent everything wrong with the world. The recently built Eiffel Tower is central to a set-piece chase scene, as is Le Jardin des Plantes (botanical gardens) where the flea experiment is carried out. The world of the cabaret is represented while the burgeoning art of cinema (invented by the French) is thrown in but comes to nothing.

The filmmakers needed to focus on one or two of the film’s many strands, get into the story sooner, and lose a pair of lovers or a few car chases. If they had done this, and allowed the beauty and the beast story to develop with more contemporaneous musical numbers, A Monster in Paris could have been an animation classic.